MOST OF KEY LECTURERS' SLIDES ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE.


FINAL PROGRAMME  IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
(see link at foot or click here)

 

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Energy and environmental issues are particularly challenging for the developing countries in general, both politically and economically. This may be due to the technological, cultural, and awareness gaps that exist in the general public in those countries  with respect to the most developed countries. The impact of these gaps is mainly seen in the policies regarding global warming, the use of solar, wind, and hydrogen sources of energy, as well as the development of efficient energy storage technologies and capabilities. In 2012, the UN's SE4ALL issued a report which argues that no sustainable development can occur without sustainable energy. The Global Action Agenda defined by SE4ALL will require a critical mass of highly trained individuals within developing nations.
 
Currently, the three major areas of energy-related research are energy conversion, energy saving (including efficiency) and energy storage, all of which will require significant capacity building within developing countries. Strengthening the scientific and technological knowledge base in these areas represents a realistic approach to reduce the dependence on foreign imported skills and resources.

We believe that the understanding of the fundamental processes that are experimentally observed within materials at different scales can guide a very much needed approach of materials-by-design to improve efficiency and costs in several environment-friendly technologies. The School in Cartagena (Colombia) will provide an initial overview of recent experimental and theoretical developments and an in-depth treatment of some advanced computational methodologies that are used to address the problem of materials for energy and environmental applications.
 
A multiscale view of the materials modeling, with electronic structure methods at its base, is of paramount importance to guide and understand experimental results. Such a view is becoming the dominant framework of investigation in condensed matter physics, materials science, biology, and nanoscience.

In particular, methods such as Density Functional Theory are based on the almost exact solution of the Schrödinger equation for the electrons and allow for the description of the mechanical, vibrational, electrical, magnetic, and several other properties of solids with "chemical accuracy," without any empirical input.

This is a rapidly evolving field, which also offers people in developing countries the opportunity to carry out cutting-edge theoretical research with relatively low financial investments in equipment.

Our ultimate goal is to bring young scientists from those countries up to speed by providing them with the most recent knowledge about experimental developments as well as fundamental concepts coming from electronic structure research.

This activity offers also networking opportunities for participants to facilitate carrying out state of the art theoretical research on clean-energy materials, back in their home institutions.