Summer School 2025 Fonctional Materials & Processes for Energy and Sustainable Development

Securing the world's energy supply from renewable sources is one of the major challenges of our generation, in the face of depleting resources, growing energy consumption and climate change. Research into energy-related materials and processes is therefore a priority for the scientific community.

The ‘Functional Materials and Processes for Energy and Sustainable Development’ summer school offers an overview of the most relevant areas in energy production and storage, with a focus on green and sustainable processes. 

The research areas that will be covered include the latest advances in solar energy conversion technologies (photovoltaics, photocatalysis, etc.); fuel cells and the hydrogen vector (storage, production); electrochemical storage (batteries and supercapacitors); thermoelectric materials; biomass conversion and bioenergy; catalytic materials for energy. The school will also cover the contribution of major families of materials (organic and inorganic for these applications) as well as advanced characterisation techniques for these materials, such as in-situ microscopy.

We have selected an interdisciplinary group of outstanding national and international scientists working at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology and structural characterisation, as well as speakers from industry, to present these different fields.

The ITI HiFunMat Summer School 2025 consists of:

• Scientific seminars
• 2x 1h Poster sessions
• Workshops on research funding activities and open sciences
• A conference open to the general public
• 1 gala dinner

Come join our summer school to

• Discover & learn about energy related themes. Each seminar includes a general introduction to the subject to provide a basis of understanding for a multidisciplinary audience, followed by in-depth specific applications, analysis techniques, practical examples, and future challenges.
• Network and integrate the scientific community.
• Come into contact with other young researchers from different research fields, such as physics, physical chemistry, chemistry, material engineering, and biology. 
• Participate in team-building workshops during which you work in small groups on fictitious projects aimed at tackling energy-related challenges from a sustainability perspective by writing a funding proposal. The teams will be made up of students from different fields of study to promote interdisciplinarity.  The groups will present the results of their collaborative work on the last day of the summer school. 
• Be guided by experts on project writing to guide you.
• Learn, via a workshop, about open science, an important issue for your future career.
• To think about today's energy challenges

This summer school is open to all national and international students and researchers interested in the transversal, multi-disciplinary field of energy and sustainable processes.

Registration is mandatory, and participants expected to stay for the duration of the entire program!

At the end of the summer school all participants that have been present for the duration of the whole program, and have actively participated in the seminars, discussions, and exercises, will receive a certificate of successful participation. This certificate could help students to validate ECTS or hours for the doctorate school of their home university.

The summer school is organized by the interdisciplinary thematic Institute of Hierarchical and Functional Materials, which gathers a Master-Doctorate training program and a cluster of excellence, and is dedicated to the development of advanced composite materials with appealing and outstanding properties for health, environment, and energy applications. The Master-Doctorate program trains young researchers in the multidisciplinary domain of Material Science.

The summer school is supported by the University of Strasbourg Initiative of Excellence, and partner institutions (Institut Charles Sadron, Institut de Science de Matériaux de Mulhouse, Institute for Chemistry and Processes for Energy, Environment and Health, Laboratoire d'Innovation Moléculaire et Applications, Institut pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, ED 182, ED 222). Their support underlines the formidable links between ITI HiFunMat and its partners, the strong collaborations, and the strength of the alsacian site in Material science.

Organization committee

• Dr Thomas Cottineau
• Dr Sergey Pronkin
• Dr Camelia Ghimbeu
• Dr Melodie Galerne

Participating Institutions