The ChemKrist working group sees its most important task as providing further training for young scientists through courses and summer schools, as well as organising ambitious scientific Conferences on selected topics. We have therefore long held either a summer school or a “workshop conference” every year; since the “Year of Chemistry”, we have even successfully offered both. While Conferences for experienced colleagues have been held for some time, since 2000 we have organised a summer school every two years for early-career scientists, “Fundamentals of Single-Crystal Structure Determination”, at Hardehausen Monastery. Here, experienced tutors teach participants the fundamentals of X-ray structure analysis. In addition, the Kiel workshop on “Errors, Pitfalls and Problems in Single-Crystal Structure Analysis” has now become firmly established. It is aimed primarily at advanced doctoral students who attended the summer school in Hardehausen the previous year, and, through the solution of practical examples, continues the tradition of the Göttingen workshops led by George M. Sheldrick 20 years ago.
To complement this type of training, we have now begun writing “teaching pamphlets” on important crystallographic topics. These short essays are aimed at advanced students or doctoral students; they focus primarily on the problems that may arise during a crystal structure determination and present some recent developments. The teaching pamphlets are not intended to—and cannot—replace textbooks, but rather facilitate a rapid introduction to the specialist literature. They are not original research papers, but more like “translations”. The authors have attempted to present recent publications in journals, as well as difficult-to-understand chapters in the standard textbooks, in a way that is comprehensible to “beginners”.
This series is initially starting with a few selected topics, but is intended to be continuously expanded and (if necessary) updated. I would be pleased if everyone regarded it—and made use of it—as an enrichment.
