During the European Young Chemists´ Network (EYCN, EuCheMS´ young division) Career Days, a session co-organised with DFG (German Research Foundation) was dedicated to chemistry funding possibilities in Europe. With the personal funding experiences of Federico Bella (Politecnico di Torino), Bettina V. Lotsch (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Andreas Hirsch (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg), and Katharina Kohse-Höinghaus (Universität Bielefeld), and with an overview of DFG funding opportunities by Wolgang Wachter (DFG), the session started with an outline of the main funding streams available for chemistry research in Europe, as well as other labour market opportunities for young, and not so young, chemists. In this opening presentation delivered by Bruno Vilela, EuCheMS Public Affairs Officer, it was also explained the role of EuCheMS in providing a single, strong voice for chemistry in Europe, and how does this positively influences the dialogue between researchers, society, and policy-makers, who among other things are responsible for funding programming.
EYCN also organised for the first time during an ECC a Science Café, an initiative where chemists go to a pub and share, in a relaxed environment, their knowledge and passion about chemistry with everyone interested. This initiative attracted a multitude of attentive participants and counted with a presentation on how molecules react among them, a demonstration of measuring alcohol through breath, the chemistry of wine (and hangover), and an explanation of catalysis using a car catalyst as an example.