LightDyNAmics ESR Elena Castellani (ESR9) has won the first prize for best presentation at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s RSC Spectroscopy & Dynamics Group Meeting 2020. Elena’s talk focused on a photoelectron spectroscopy study showing the viability of dipole-bound state in the presence of a molecular fragment. Many congratulations to her!

Steadliy the ESR's are participating in workshops and conferences, contributing with poster and oral presentations to the following events:
17th International Conference on Chiroptical Spectroscopy
CFF 2019 - Chemistry for the Future International Conference
9th edition of the JED PhD Students day in Toulouse
La fédération de Chimie-Physique de Paris Saclay CPPS

The first annual LightDyNAmics week has been a great success and was enjoyed by ESRs and PIs alike. The week was kicked-off by the Wider Horizon Day lead by our Scientific Advisory Board member Prof. Johannes Gierschner of IMDEA. The scientific skills of the ESRs were further trained through lectures on methodological and technical skills such as "Excited state dynamics simulations using SHARC" or "Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy". Following our training  concept, the 1st LightDyNAmics week also included trainings on transferable and business skills with lectures on science communication and entrepreneurship. Next to the training activities, the ESRs also got to meet with the REA Project Officer as part of the successful mid-term check meeting - a new format introduced by the EC. An exciting and formative city tour and mountains of the very best Italian food rounded off the event.

In a month from now, the first LightDyNAmics week will be held from the 17-21 June at the Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari" in Bologna, Italy.  The programme includes the Wider Horizon Day: "Future Lighting: Changes an Challenges of OLEDs" and lectures to improve Methodological & Technical skills as well as Transferable & Business skills. The last day of the meeting will be dedicated to the midterm check with the EC  project officer.

The LightDyNAmics consortium is happy to announce the first peer-reviewed publication by ESR Davide Avagliano (UNIVIE). The journal article titled "DNA-binding mechanism of spiropyran photoswitches: the role of electrostatics" was published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and is accessible through open access.

The LightDyNAmics has successfully been held from 21 - 25 January 2019 at the Institute for Biostructures and Bioimaging (CNR) in Naples, Italy. The ESRs got to meet each other for the first time and over five days they were introduced to the field of light/soft-matter interaction, basic principles of genetics, DNA and RNA structure through a mix of lectures and exercises. 
The ESRs themselves presented their research topic to the consortium. The programme was complemented with a guided tour through the historical centre of Naples.
The next chance to meet for the LightDyNamic networt will be the first LightDyNamic week in June 2019.

So far, nine of the total 15 LightDyNAmics ESRs have started their positions with the respective Beneficiaries. The ESRs will spend a total of three years on the project and will get trained in the area of light/soft-matter interaction. Apart from the training they receive through their local research projects, each ESR will also be enrolled in a PhD programme. Through the network-wide training events, the ESRs will receive multidisciplinary scientific training and acquire transferable and business skills. Read more about the training the LightDyNAmics ESRs will receive in the Training section.

LightDyNAmics has officially started on 1 April 2018. The project will be coordinated by Dr. Roberto Improta of the Consiglio Nazionale dell Ricerche in Naples, Italy. The project includes 13 Beneficiaries from eight European Countries. The European Training Network will offer 15 PhD positions in the field of light/soft-matter interaction.

The LightDyNamic kick-off meeting was held on the 22 January 2018 online. The meeting took approximately two hours and the following content has been discussed:

• Q & A about the Grant Agreement
• Mobillity and recruitment of the ESR's
• Dissemination and Communication Tasks
• Requirements from the EU
• Overview of the scientific work packages

The first time the consortium and the ESR's are going to meet face-to-face in during the introduction week in January 2019.