XXV Conference of the Serbian Crystallographic Society

The XXV Conference of the Serbian Crystallographic Society was held from 21 to 23 June 2018 in Bajina Bašta, a small town located at the edge of Tara National Park in western Serbia. The conference was organised by the Serbian Crystallographic Society (SCS) and the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, under the patronage of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. The conference was attended by 70 participants from 14 countries. The programme was composed of welcome addresses, invited lectures (45 min), short oral presentations (15 min) and an extended poster session. The IUCr supported the conference by providing Visiting Professorships and a fund of USD2500 to assist young scientists to attend. The invitation to attend the conference as Visiting Professors (VPs) and plenary lecturers was kindly accepted by Vaclav Petříček (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Ivana Radosavljević Evans (Durham University, UK) and Christoph Janiak (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany). The SCS also had a pleasure of hosting three other eminent scientists: Anne Spasojevic-de Biré (CentraleSupélec, France), Piero Macchi (University of Bern, Switzerland) and Kittipong Chainok (Thammasat University, Thailand).

The IUCr fund for young scientists was used to support the travel and accommodation expenses for 16 young participants. These young scientists could choose to present their latest results through an oral or a poster presentation or both. The workshop “Crystallographic methods, tools and possibilities” was organised in the form of a two-day extended poster session. During this session, the young scientists were encouraged to present the challenging problems of their current research and to exchange ideas about problem solving with our international guests and other participants. The poster session was very well attended, with 33 posters being available for the whole duration of the conference. Two young scientists – Ivana Marjanović (University of Novi Sad, Serbia) and Predrag Dabić (University of Belgrade, Serbia) – were honoured with the IUCr Journals Poster Prizes for the best posters in the categories of Structural Chemistry and Materials, respectively, judged by Professors Spasojevic-de Biré, Chainok and Tamara Todorović (University of Belgrade, Serbia). An additional Poster Prize was provided by the SCS, which considered the best poster in all categories. The VPs prepared a special award for the best oral presentation given by the IUCr-supported young scientists, which was won by Marko Rodić (University of Novi Sad, Serbia) for his talk "Preliminary Results of Experimental Charge Density Determination of [Ni(L)py] (H₂L = benzoylacetone S-methylisothiosemicarbazone)".

Marko Rodić (left) receives his VP Prize, a copy of the IUCr/OUP book Fundamentals of Crystallography by Giacovazzo et al., from VP Ivana Radosavljević Evans.

In general, the conference covered a wide range of topics: single-crystal and powder diffraction, chemical crystallography, crystal engineering, charge density, quantum-chemical and database studies, and materials science. The event passed in an informal and friendly atmosphere with stimulating discussions during the sessions as well as in the coffee breaks. We hope that the conference helped our young colleagues to get better acquainted with the possibilities of contemporary crystallographic research and to recognize appropriate methods for further improvement of their work. On the last day of the conference, all participants were invited on a guided excursion to the beautiful Tara Mountain, River Drina and Perućac Lake. The General Assembly of SCS evaluated the conference as very successful and the generous support from the IUCr was gratefully acknowledged. The presence of the excellent lecturers and the IUCr support for young scientists certainly contributed to the increased number of conference participants compared with the SCS conferences held in previous years.