History and Scope

The COST School has been established within the COST Action D43 in 2008 and has since been organized each year in different European countries. The workshop 2015 was in London, 2014 in Delft, 2013 in Geneva. The average number of participants is about 60 students coming from many European countries.

The aim of the school is to bridge the gap between the knowledge of students and the skills that are required to be a successful research scientist in the field of Colloid and Interface science. The major objective is to discuss modern surface analytical tools that increased our understanding of fluid interfaces. Selected surface analytical tools namely AFM, surface force spectroscopy, reflectometry, nonlinear optical techniques or grazing incidence scattering are presented in tutorial review style by scientists using these techniques in their daily research. The information is then discussed and deepened in small workgroups on the basis of problem sheets between the attendees.  The interactive element is a key feature of this workshop. The working groups are mixed at random, so the Bulgarian PhD is working with the master student from Queens Mary College and the post-doc from Geneva. Tutors are providing help if requested. This format was well received  by the participants.  Each workshop comprises also sessions on fundamental theories such as surfaces forces and interactions, surface thermodynamics, wetting, microfluids.

Information on previous schools can be found on the school archive webpage at http://cost2014.stfca.nl/