The European Winter School on Physical Organic Chemistry will take place in Bressanone early next year, straddling the end of January and the beginning of February. Why am I telling you this? Well, although the main focus of the winter school is going to be catalysis, the organizers have kindly invited me to give a talk about scientific publishing.

There are 14 speakers in total, so in addition to yours truly, there will be lectures from: Martin Albrecht (UCD), Isabel Arends (TUDelft), Matthias Beller (LIKAT), Carsten Bolm (Aachen), Olga Bortolini (Ferrara), Miquel Costas Salgueiro (Girona), Livius Cotarca (Zach), Fahmi Himo (Stockholm), Alceo Macchioni (UNIPG), Feliu Maseras (ICIQ), Per-Ola Norrby (Göteborg), Sason Shaik (HUJI), and Dieter Vogt (TUE).

The school is aimed primarily at PhD students, postdocs and junior researchers in academia and industry, but established researchers can apply to go as well. There are some fellowships available to cover the cost of registration and so if you are interested, you should contact the organizers – see the website for more details. The deadline for applications is November 1st, so get in there quick.

You may notice that the winter-school website has a bit of a skiing theme – so if you like skiing (like my colleague Neil), perhaps there is some extra incentive to apply. I’m about as indifferent to skiing as one can get (I imagine), so Neil is somewhat miffed that I’ve managed to get an invite to a conference in a ski resort in January. I’ve been told to make it clear that if you know of any chemistry conferences next year where skiing is a possibility, you should let Neil know forthwith – perhaps in the comments below!

Hope to see you in Bressanone in Jan/Feb next year!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)