CRC 1411 represented at G’Scheid Schlau! online outreach event with an action-packed presentation

Every two years the doors of academic institutions, public offices and industry in the Nuremberg-Fürth-Erlangen metropolitan area swing open for one evening only for the Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften (literally “Long Night of Science and Learning”) event. It’s an opportunity for everyone living in the region to sample, first hand, the kaleidoscope of work activities which employees get up to on a daily basis. With the next edition due in October 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic still preventing large scale events, a digital substitute took place. Reflecting the fact that a similar spectrum of experiences to that offered in presence could never be realised online in one evening, the event was expanded to run for a long weekend, from the evening of Thursday 21 October to Sunday 24 October. Perhaps to distract from the rather predictable title: Das Lange Wochenende der Wissenschaften (“The Long Weekend of Science and Learning”), the organizers turned to the colorful local Franconian dialect for the catchy headline: G’scheid Schlau! (reliably translated by a reputable online translator as “smart as a whip!”).
As the first large scale outreach event since the start of CRC 1411, we were delighted to present our new initiative to the local region as one of nearly 60 live contributions from the FAU. During a one hour programme, CRC 1411 principal investigator Robin Klupp Taylor introduced, in layman’s terms, the key challenges and methods with which we are occupied. The lecture, which included pre-recorded and live interactive contributions by four teams from our integrated Research Training Group had the title Auf der Suche nach der perfekten Farbe (“The quest for the perfect colour”). The two main activities of CRC 1411, namely the synthesis of coloured particles and nanoparticle chromatography, were illustrated and the approximately 30 interested visitors were encouraged to participate with home experiments, both practical and theoretical.

After the event, the presentation and associated activities were adapted for the purpose of long term outreach and can now be viewed on a newly created page on this website. While this is currently in German, we intend to release a parallel English outreach page in December 2021.

Thank you to all members of CRC 1411 who contributed to making this a highly visible and successful event!

The full presentation can be watched again here: