The visit and work of members of Sub-project 2 – IUC partnership with Quy Nhon University at KU Leuven – Belgium

On 21st of November 2022, three team members of sub-project 2, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Vuong, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Thi Ngoc Loan and Dr. Tran Nam Trung, from Quy Nhon University (QNU) paid a visit to KU Leuven, Belgium to discuss the working plans for the 1st year of the sub-project implementation. In the morning, a fruitful discussion amongst Prof. Ewald Janssens, Vice-dean of the Department of Physics and Astronomy (DoPA), KU Leuven, the Flemish team leader of sub-project 2 from Flemish universities, and Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Minh Vuong, Dean of the Department of Physics and Materials Science (DoPM), Quy Nhon University, the local team leader and his team. The discussion sketched out a timeline for proposed activities for the 1st year including PhD interviews, ordering equipment, planning the opening workshop, and conducting first experiments, etc. In the afternoon, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Minh Vuong gave a talk on the topic of advanced catalysts for gas sensing and solar energy conversion, in which he briefly introduced labs facilities at QNU, ongoing research and few key achievements of his research group to staff and students at the DoPA. Following the talk, he received a positive reaction and opened an enthusiastic discussion with the audience. Besides, Assoc. Prof. Vuong mentioned the effectiveness of mutual collaboration between the two departments throughout the SI project (2018-2019) and MOMA project (2019-2022), which is expected to pave the way for the successful implementation of sub-project 2, IUC program. After that, QNU researchers visited various labs at the DoPA, KU Leuven.  During the lab tour, the team had a chance to discuss with Prof. André Vantomme, Prof. Lino Pereira, Prof. Joris and Prof. Ewald Janssens for opportunities to get trained and have access to those labs for sandwich PhD students when working at KU Leuven in upcoming years.

Team members of Sub-project 2 are discussing with Prof. Ewald about some work packages
in the first year of the sub-project

Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Minh Vuong (Local team leader of sub-project 2) is presenting research topics currently performed at the DoPM, Faculty of Natural Science, QNU.

Team members of sub-project 2 had a labs’ tour at DoPA, KU Leuven

Taking advantage of the visit to the international office at KU Leuven, 3 team members of sub-project 2 met Prof. Peter Lieven, Vice rector of the university of Leuven who came up with the idea of making an IUC program when visiting QNU in 2018. He was happy and positive to look forward to the great success of the IUC partnership with Quy Nhon University which would bring larger impacts on the QNU and local society.

Team members of sub-project 2 are taking a sourvenir photo with Prof. Peter Lieven – Vice Rector of KU Leuven

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