Symposium of the French Association for Crystallography

The biennial national conference of the French Crystallography Association will be held this year at the Corum in Montpellier from July 2 to 5. It will bring together 250 scientists involved in crystallography. These scientists, mainly biologists, geologists, chemists, and physicists, create, study, or use crystals in their research to investigate the correlations between atomic structure and properties or functions. The local organizing committee is representative of this community, with its eight members from seven Montpellier laboratories (LPHI, Geosciences, ICGM, CBS, IEM, IGF, and L2C). This conference is the largest gathering of researchers and engineers working in the field of crystallography in France.

The primary objective of the conference is to create a unique opportunity to establish new contacts, set up new collaborations, and strengthen ties between members of the crystallography community. The conference is organized around 14 micro-symposia, four plenary lectures, lectures by the Guinier Prize winner and thesis prize winners, and a lecture by an external (foreign) organization.

A second objective is to bring together young researchers, postdocs, and doctoral students on the eve of the conference for a satellite day entitled Bringing Crystallography to Life: Industry, Research, and Education, which will focus in particular on the interactions between private academic research and the crucial role of education within it.

The third objective will be to reach out to the general public: the highlight of the conference will be a lecture open to all, dedicated to Jacques Curie, brother of Pierre Curie and brother-in-law of Marie Curie. He was a professor at the University of Montpellier, but seems to have been forgotten by the collective memory. However, he was the co-discoverer—along with Pierre—of the piezoelectric effect on quartz crystals, an effect that is still used today in many everyday objects.