31st Slovenian–Croatian crystallographic meeting

The 31st Slovenian–Croatian Crystallographic Meeting (SCCM 2025) was held on 18–22 June 2025 in Rogla, Slovenia. There were 60 registered participants from Australia, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Croatia and Slovenia.

Five plenary lectures were presented: The power of the laser-heated diamond cell combined with electron microscopy by Reinhard Boehler, University of Tennessee, USA; Complete recrystallization of metamict allanite matrices under hydrothermal conditions by Andrea Čobić, University of Zagreb; Single crystal electron diffraction on hard and soft matter by Mauro Gemmi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (ITT), Pontedera, Italy; Exploring dynamics and interactions in metal organic frameworks by Matjaž Mazaj, National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Designing functional materials: mechanisms and consequences of broken inversion symmetry by Emma E. McCabe, Durham University, United Kingdom. As a special guest lecturer, Boštjan Kobe from University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, gave a talk entitled Application of microED to determining new macromolecular structures: the structure of Toll-like receptor adaptor MyD88 TIR-domain signalosome.

Besides that, 40 short oral presentations were given that addressed contemporary topics in crystallography: structure determination of organic, inorganic and coordination compounds; crystal architecture, engineering and design; phase transitions; structure–property relationships; synergy of diffraction and complementary techniques; etc. A special emphasis was on 3D electron diffraction. A satellite workshop on this technique with practical demonstration was organized at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

One of the advantages of the Slovenian–Croatian/Croatian–Slovenian meetings is that all participants present their work in the form of short oral contributions, which is especially important for young scientists, who therefore have the opportunity to present their results in a friendly but professional atmosphere. Apart from that, these series of meetings are free of charge for all attendees. The young scientists were offered the possibility to participate in the competition for the best presentation award in different categories (BSc/MSc students and PhD students).

The jury had quite a hard task to select the best presentations and unanimously awarded the following presentations: BSc student Nadja Ziherl (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Characterization of the LaTaTiO₆–La_1/3TaO₃ tie line in the system La₂O₃–Ta₂O₅–TiO₂ by X-ray powder diffraction; MSc student Blaž Antonin (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Synthesis and characterization of copper(I) complexes with chelating 2-(methylthio)pyrimidines; and PhD students Mišel Hozjan (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Copper coordination compounds with aminopyridine derivatives of picolinic acid, and Klemen Motaln (Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia), Coordination of xenon(II) fluorides to alkali metal cations.

The meeting was co-organized by the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, and the Croatian Crystallographic Association under the auspices of the University of Ljubljana and promoted by the Slovenian Chemical Society. There was no registration fee; therefore, we thank the sponsors and advertisers: Rigaku, Renacon, Scan, ITR Lab, Scan, Aparatura, Dectris, Optik Instruments and Lek-Sandoz.

More information about the meeting can be found here: SCCM 2025 – 31st Slovenian–Croatian Crystallographic Meeting 2025.