The second day of the EACH Winter school was full of excitement.
The key event of the second day was dissolved oxygen intercomparison between the student teams. The samples were water samples from the nearby lake Pühajärv. The student teams used optical oxygen sensors (based on luminescence), see the photo on the left. The seriousness of the intercomparison is underpinned by the independent reference values determined using the highly accurate primary Winkler titration procedure (developed by Irja Helm in her PhD thesis).

The results of the intercomparison will be summarized at the closing of the Winter school.

On the right you can see the group photo (Lake pühajärv is behind the trees) taken right after the lunch and followed by a spontaneous snow fight (photo on the left, below) where the “African team” (Ime and Olivier, in the centre) performed stunningly well in comparison to the Nordic snow fighters!

 The consortium committee spent most of the day interviewing students and discussing (including negotiations with university officials about maximum possible numbers of students) for distributing students to study tracks. The day ended with the long-awaited announcement that it will be possible to grant every student the preferred study track!

On the photo on the right you can see prof. Bergquist and his team taking pictures of the students selected for the Uppsala study track.

Today, on Jan 25, 2016, the first Winter School of the EACH programme started in Pühajärve (Estonia). Altogether 24 students from 17 countries participate (besides EACH students, also some other international students from Tartu have been invited). Leading European analytical chemistry experts act as teachers and supervisors at the Winter School.

The Winter School offers a diverse set of activities to the participants. There are lectures on advanced analytical chemistry topics, tasks on data analysis and choosing analytical strategies. One of the sessions is specifically dedicated to employment opportunities of analytical chemists. The most ambitious part, a full-fledged in situ intercomparison measurement (between student teams) of dissolved oxygen concentration in lake water, will be carried out on the second day of the Winter School.

The intense working is counterbalanced by winter sports activities and relaxing in spa/swimming pool.

Full information about the Winter School activities is available at https://each.ut.ee/EACH/each-winter-school/

During Nov 25-27, 2015 the training seminar “Quality assurance for Hg measurements in food and environmental samples” was held at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana. Ivo Leito participated as a teacher and conducted discussion sessions Validation data (Reproducibility, recovery, etc) and their meaning, Measurement uncertainty and Traceability: what it is and how to demonstrate it?.

The seminar was highly successful – there was in-depth discussion during each of the sessions and the discussions continued during coffee breaks. The measurement uncertainty session featured a full-fledged uncertainty estimation (contaminant determination by LC-MS), which the participants carried out themselves on laptop computers that they had brought with them.

It is expected that the collaboration between UT and Jožef Stefan Institute (and other research centres in the region) will continue and deepen.

We are glad to announce that the 2016 admission is officially open to the Excellence in Analytical Chemistry (EACH) Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree programme!

This international two-year joint master degree programme educates specialists in analytical chemistry well qualified to work in industry (food, pharmaceutical, materials, energy, etc) and chemical analysis laboratories (environment, food, health, etc) worldwide. EACH provides knowledge and practical skills in both fundamental and applied aspects of modern analytical chemistry. Practical internship placement in industry or laboratories is an important part of the training.

The programme is suitable both for students who have finished their bachelor’s studies and want to continue in master’s studies, as well as for working analytical chemistry practitioners wishing to spend couple of years to bring their knowledge and skills to a new level.

The programme features generous scholarships as detailed in the Scholarships and tuition fees page.

The programme is taught by four universities: University of Tartu (UT, coordinator), Estonia; Uppsala University (UU), Sweden; University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL), France; and Åbo Akademi University (AAU), Finland. The language of instruction is English, but students will also learn to communicate in one of the languages of the countries involved.

The online application form, admission requirements, deadlines, list of necessary documents, instructions/explanations, as well as contact data for questions are available from the EACH Admission information page.

Today (Aug 31, 2015) the introductory meeting of the EACH Erasmus Mundus students with the programme coordinators took place at UT Chemicum.

All the 18 students (originating from Ukraine, China, India, Jordan, Congo, Nepal, Nigeria, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, USA and Estonia), who start their studies in EACH in this autumn were participating. An overview of the programme was given (the slides are available from here) and a large number of questions were asked and answered, accompanied by tea/coffee and cake.

This is the first group of students who start their studies in the EACH Erasmus Mundus programme, so, exciting months are ahead, both for students and programme teachers/coordinators!

Photo: EACH Students and their Tutor Kaisa Tihkan (on the right).

The MSC Euromaster Summer School 2015 in Pulawy (Jul 12-24, 2015) was again a success and the student feedback were very positive. Two reflections from AMS students are presented here:

Sagar Patel: I will remember my time spent in summer school held at Pulawy (Poland) for a lifetime. It was amazing and I don’t have words to express my feelings. I got very useful and practical knowledge of Metrology in Chemistry, statistics, interactions with customers, ISO 17025 and many more. Apart from studies I got a chance to work with students and professionals from different countries.

Karl Kütt: The MSC Summer school on metrology in chemistry has been a great addition to my studies. It combines the theoretical knowledge that I have learned in my program with the teamwork skills and real-world problem-solving skills that one encounters when running a real laboratory or a project. The course had extensive lessons on both uncertainties in chemistry and validation (a key aspect in the ISO 17025 standard). The neat thing about the summer school is that in its practical exercises you’re not presented with a wrong or a right way, but a situation in which every decision has its pros and cons. I think going to the summer school greatly improved my skills in working in a group, solving complicated problems as well as helped me make important contacts and great friends in the field of metrology.

Image on the left: UT students who participated in the MSC Summer School 2015, from left to right: Sagar Patel (India), Sylvestre Pagkeu (Cameroon), Martins Jansons (Latvia), Karl Kütt (Estonia)

This week saw the start (on Mon, Jul 13, 2015) of the 8th MSC Euromaster summer school 2015 in Puławy (Poland).

As in previous years, a core aim of the Summer school is shifting the activities away from the classical lecture-type of teaching by increasing the share of discussions, hands-on work, teamwork. As usual, a key activity of the summer school is the contest of student teams (setting up virtual laboratories and interacting with customers), which tests their knowledge and skills in all areas of metrology in chemistry.

This year the summer school makes further advances in terms of this “core shift”. One of the modules, which was carried out differently, was measurement uncertainty, which was the the main responsibility of UT during the summer school. Instead of the classical way – starting with lecture and then moving to discussion – the students were well in advance of the Summer school asked to learn the basic (and quite some not so basic) topics of measurement uncertainty using the web course Estimation of Measurement Uncertainty in Chemical Analysis. This way the lecturing part was omitted completely from the Summer school, as students had the necessary preparation. Thus, the whole measurement uncertainty module at the Summer school consisted of a big session of discussions and problem solving.

Another module, where hands-on work was very important was the Internal and external quality control module (delivered mainly by Ricardo Da Silva from University of Lisbon). He organised an “interlaboratory comparison” between students (in visual photometry) as a part of the session! Students were very excited to see how their results compared to their colleagues’ results.

The summer school still has one week to go and will finish on Fri, Jul 24, 2015.