Communication

The US National Science Foundation has announced a $65.3M investment in 37 new awards in the Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future program.

"For me, doing research means never stopping learning and improving myself, all while contributing to a better future."

"Be curious, don't be afraid to ask questions and challenge what you are told. Curiosity doesn't kill as opposed to the common saying, rather it empowers you to perceive beyond what is tangible."

"My advice to young girls who want to pursue a scientific career: do it, because you can!"

"Without research, no progress is possible. To change things, you have to understand them."

"If you want to become what you truly are, I don't just think it's important to believe in it, I think it's the only thing to do!" 

After a summer break the #NCCRWomen campaign continues with new portraits showing how women in Swiss research are changing the world!

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of women obtaining the right to vote in Switzerland, the 22 active NCCRs have joined forces in a campaign showing how in these 50 years women have come to occupy a central place in research in almost all scientific fields. During this campaign, these female researchers will be showing you who they are, what they do and why they are doing it.

In collaboration with MARVEL and EPFL, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) is officially expanding its own focus areas and establishing a new research division: Scientific Computing, Theory, and Data. Here researchers will increasingly focus on the development of new computer and data technology and its use in science. The new research division is PSI's sixth, joining five previously established divisions: Biology and Chemistry; Research with Neutrons and Muons; Nuclear Energy and Safety; Energy and Environment; and Photon Science.

We are happy to announce that Nanchen Dongfang (UZH), Emma Lumiaro (Aalto University) and Mathilde Franckel (ECPM, Strasbourg) were granted INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships after the April 2021 call. The three women will join MARVEL labs for a 6-month Master's research project — congratulations!

Nicola Marzari, head of the Theory and Simulation of Materials laboratory at EFPL and director of NCCR MARVEL, has just published a review of electronic-structure methods as an “Insight” piece in Nature Materials. The article, written with Andrea Ferretti of CNR–Instituto Nanoscienze and Chris Wolverton of Northwestern University, provides an overview of these methods, discusses their application to the prediction of materials properties, and examines different strategies used to target the broader goals of materials design and discovery. Looking ahead, the authors consider emerging challenges in the predictive accuracy of the calculations, and in addressing the real-life complexity of materials and devices. They also stress the importance of the computational infrastructures that support such research, and how the planning for funding these and the supporting career models is only just beginning to emerge.

We are very pleased to announce that the Materials Cloud platform developed by the NCCR MARVEL is now an official repository for Open Research Europe.