An HERCULES school (Higher European Research Course for Users of Large Experimental Systems)  will be organised in SESAME (Amman, Jordan) from 26 October to 7 November 2019.

The two-weeks school will train young researchers on the broad basics, techniques of synchrotron radiation and applications in the fields of Material Science, Cultural Heritage, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Biomedicine, Structural Biology and Environment.

The school, following the principles of the Hercules school, will include:

• Lectures from internationally recognised experts. See the list and preliminary programme below
• tutorials and practicals in small groups, including on SESAME beamlines

 The entire school will be taught in English.

The following experimental techniques will be covered:

• X-ray Absorption spectroscopy
• Infrared spectroscopy
• Soft X-ray spectroscopy
• Powder and single crystal diffraction
• Macromolecular crystallography
• Small-angle X-ray scattering
• X-ray imaging & tomography

Who can apply ?

• PhD students
• Post-doctoral fellows
• Young researchers (with a PhD)
• Working in Middle East and neighbouring countries, including all SESAME members
• The school welcomes applications regardless of ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, political or other opinion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability
• For participants coming from SESAME members: funding from the Open Sesame European project will cover travel to SESAME as well as on-site living expenses
• Participants will be selected based on the merits and scientific quality of their application (including CV, motivation and recommendation letters)

Important dates

• Application is now opened: deadline for application 20 June 2019
• Confirmation of selection to participants: July 2019
• 26 October 2019: beginning of the school

Application

• Application is now open !
• Apply on https://indico.esrf.fr/indico/event/29/

Sponsors & Supporting Institutions

The school is entirely funded by the OPEN-SESAME European project.

Organising & scientific advisory committee 

• Vincent FAVRE-NICOLIN (ESRF & Univ. Grenoble Alpes) - School director
• Mahmoud Abdellatief (SESAME)
• Miguel ARANDA (Univ. Malaga)
• Isabelle COMBE (ESRF)
• Greta FACILE (SESAME)
• Gihan Kamel (SESAME)
• Michael KRISCH (ESRF)
• Messaoud Harfouche (SESAME)
• Edward MITCHELL (ESRF)
• Giorgio PAOLUCCI (SESAME)
• Kimberley ROBERT (ESRF)

Preliminary programme

Lectures will be given on the following topics (speakers to be confirmed):

• Scattering & X-ray/matter interaction
• Introduction to synchrotron radiation
• Microscopy (scanning)
• Full-field imaging
• Introduction to spectroscopy
• X-ray absortion & EXAFS
• Intro to neutron scattering & spectroscopy
• Single crystal diffraction
• Powder diffraction
• Soft X-ray spectroscopy
• Infrared spectroscopy
• MX: data collection, structure solution and refinement
• MX: large structure determination
• Coherent X-ray imaging
• Soft condensed matter imaging
• Industrial applications
• Small Angle X-ray Scattering
• Material Science, metallurgy ?
• Introduction to SESAME & Presentation of SESAME beamlines
• Nano-structures
• Grazing incidence techniques
• Applications to environmental science
• Applications to cultural heritage

The full programme (click for pdf version):