The modern history of the Young Scientists Council of IRE NASU began in 2001 with the active participation of Olexander Kogut, who headed the first council, and Ganna Boiko, who helped to compile the organization charter of the Council, which in updated versions is acting till today (Statute YSC-2021.pdf). At various times, the Council was headed by Artem Boriskin, Oleksiy Kuleshov, Michael Balaban, Pavlo Vyplavin, Maxim Khruslov, Darina Pesina, Tetiana Rokhmanova. Since the beginning of 2021 the evelenth convocation of the Council started its work with Yuriy Kovshov as its chair. Having eleven convocations means more than 150 young scientists working in all scientific areas presented in the Institute. It is more than 150 different people, united by the desire to create meaningful things, move forward and lead the others.

Since the early years the aim of the Council was to promote professional development of young scientists, their creative growth and experience gaining, and to represent the interests of young researchers and professionals of the Institute (scientists, graduate students, doctoral students, engineers, and university students working part-time in academic departments).

The Council work combines both scientific and social activities. Young Scientists Council holds regular meetings and seminars to hear the candidates for NASU and the President of Ukraine scholarships. In addition, a representative of the Council at the Scientific Council of IRE provides its members a full report on the scientific activity of each of the candidates and takes part in the vote to support one candidate or another, and on other issues.

For a long time, one of the main activities of the Council was the organization of Kharkiv Young Scientists Conference on Radiophysics, Electronics, Photonics and Biophysics (YSC, http://ysc.org.ua). Originally it was created as a local event where young scientists of IRE could improve their oral presentation skills, and the authors of the best works and reports in each of the sections by the decision of members of the editorial board (jury) were given the opportunity to publish their researches in the “Radiophysics and Electronics” proceedings of IRE. Over time, the conference has grown into an international event: every year young scientists not only from all over Ukraine but also from Belarus, Russia, Armenia participate in YSC.

Traditionally, the topics of the conference covered the research areas represented at the Institute. Among them are the following ones: solid-state radiophysics, microwave and terahertz electronics, nano- and metamaterials, optics and photonics, geoscience and remote sensing, computational and experimental electromagnetics, molecular and applied biophysics. Due to close and friendly relations with young scientists from RI NASU, for many years the radioastronomy section has been presented at the conference.

image00213th Kharkiv Young Scientists Conference on Radiophysics, Electronics, Photonics and Biophysics

We were always striving to make our conference relevant and interesting event that presented the results of modern scientific achievements, so maximum of our efforts are directed to the invitation of foreign lecturers from leading institutions and universities in the world. Over the years, scientists from USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy etc. visited us and took part in YSC with plenary lectures.

image004IEEE lecturer, Prof. Simon  Deleonibus, CEA LETI, Grenoble, France at  YSC-2013

Every year, we also devoted attention to the career development events for young researchers. Since 2012 the remote, or on-line, education (MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses) became the traditional topic of discussion, and in 2014 we decided to make an experiment and to turn our Career and Development Workshop into KIT, Kharkiv Ideas & Technologies Workshop. The goal of KIT was to demonstrate to each other one’s usual instruments of working, and to teach others to use them in their area.

image006Final preparations before the KIT Workshop beginning. From left to right: Maksym Khruslov,  Pavlo Krasov, and Daryna Pesina

Also, special attention during the conference we paid to the social activities. The communication of the participants in an informal and friendly atmosphere, which is as much important for meeting and potential cooperation as communication within the sections, has always been an integral part of the young scientists conference. Over the years, the cultural program included such activities as visiting Kharkiv theaters, a jazz concert, city tours with Maxim Rosenfeld, and an excursion to the Museum of Aviation and the open-air museum of Kharkiv State Aircraft Manufacturing Company.

image010YSC-2013 welcome party in anticafe “Om”

The experience in organizing Young Scientists Conferences allowed some members of the Council to be successfully involved in the organization of major scientific symposia and conferences like MSMW and MMET.

In 2015-2017, inspired by the success of previous conferences, we decided to organize something more ambitious and courageous, the International Young Scientists Forum on Applied Physics (YSF). YSF was a new format of the event, bringing together young scientists, students and graduate students not only from Ukraine, but also from other countries. The main idea of YSF was an interdisciplinary interaction, a discussion of a wide range of issues on modern state of physics and science in general, and an attempt to find solutions to urgent problems and the existing difficulties.

image010YSF-2015, Dnipro

The organization of the Forum was carried out by the joint efforts of the representatives of scientific and educational organizations. An important step in increasing the level of the event was to have new requirements for publications, which in 2015 will be published in IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The advantage of such conference proceedings, corresponding to uniform IEEE standards, is that they are indexed in such scientific databases as Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and others.

Since 2017, the capacity of the YSC has decreased, but we continue to organize useful events for young scientists, but on a smaller scale, including:

  • Workshop on writing articles in English by Natalia Korol, Ph.D. in Biological Sciences (Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, NASU, Kyiv, Ukraine).
  • Seminar on science-intensive startups – a meeting with IT-Jim, which provides high-quality research in the field of computer vision and machine learning.
  • Scientific quizzes (SciQuiz) in pubs to promote science and unite young scientists of Kharkiv and science fans.
  • Party for the day Pi.
  • Workshop “Introduction to Machine Learning (for scientists)”, which had two parts – lecture and practice. The purpose of the workshop was to acquaint young scientists of Kharkiv with the possibilities and limitations of machine learning using in scientific research.

image010Participants of the workshop «Introduction to Machine Learning (for scientists)», 2019

  • Lecture from the famous science popularizer, Ph.D. in physical and mathematical sciences Anton Senenko “How to see an atom?” open to a wide audience.
  • Articles competition for young scientists with prizes, which was held in a reduced number due to quarantine restrictions.

image010Articles competition for young scientists, 2020

Most of these events were supported by EPS YM (https://www.epsyoungminds.org/).

Apart from that, members of IRE Young Scientists Council actively cooperate with IEEE and OSA. For instance, representatives of the Council are involved in the work of the Young Scientists Council of Department of Physics and Astronomy of NAS of Ukraine and Kharkiv Regional Council of Young Scientists; in the summer of 2013 members of the Council along with IEEE ED-S representatives visited field laboratory for research of the ionosphere (Martovoe, Kharkiv region); in May 2015, together with colleagues from the RI NASU, we organized visit to the radiotelescope UTR-2 (Grakovo, Kharkiv region).

image016Visiting radiotelescope UTR-2

 

Also, YSC members actively participate in Science Days with popular science reports on their scientific activities. For example, the recording of the lecture “Metamaterials – from theory to application” can be found at: https://youtu.be/Qn-yNV_5xVY

Young Scientists Council is actively involved in the social life of the Institute:

  • We assist in the organization of New Year events. For example, in 2014 we held an intellectual casino “IRE Royale”, in which young scientists acted as the croupiers, explaining the rules of the various board games for the employees of IRE.
  • We organize exhibitions of photos, hand-made products and workshops on how to create them.

020                                        Exhibition of S.M. Kolpakov’s photos                                       Exhibition of hand-made products by IRE employees

image024Workshop on weaving machine tool from I.E. Pochanina at the exhibition of hand-made products

  • We designed and built bicycle parking.
  • YSC members organized the IRE & RIAN Speaking Club. For some time, young scientists of IRE and RI NASU, motivated to improve their knowledge of spoken English, gathered together in a friendly atmosphere to discuss various interesting topics, to share useful information on communication skills and work in an English-speaking environment. Currently, the club continues to exist online: https://www.fb.com/groups/IreRianSpeakingClub
  • From April 2015 to November 2020, thanks to the YSC and network “Batteries, give up!”, the Institute collected used batteries with the aim of further recycling. In 2020, all collected batteries were sent for recycling to a plant in Romania.

For many members of the Council sport is an integral part of their lives. For example, we have built a volleyball court, organized joint kayak tours by Vorskla and other rivers. Pavlo Vyplavin, who was the chair of the seventh convocation of the Council, is one of the main organizers of the Kharkiv Bicycle Day and a pioneer of Kharkiv Ultimate, non-contact team sport with a flying disc.

image026Kayak tour by Vorskla, 2014

image028 Kharkiv Bicycle Day, Pavlo Vyplavin is in the center holding speaker

Despite the difficulties that began in 2020 due to the pandemic, we continue to develop. A great example of this was the workshop “Using LaTeX in the preparation of scientific articles and more!”, which took place on the ZOOM platform.

image028 LaTeX workshop in ZOOM, lector:Dr. S. S. Apostolov, 2021

So the story goes on!