The 11th International Nanoscience Student Conference (INASCON) was held last month at Wills Hall, Bristol, with almost 80 delegates attending from universities across Europe. INASCON has previously been hosted in countries such as Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands, with this year being the second time in the UK, and the first at the University of Bristol. As a student-run nanoscience conference, naturally many members of the BCFN were highly involved from the beginning. BCFN students from multiple cohorts were a core part of the organising committee, including co-chairs Matt Mulvee and Julia Walton, and committee members Rosalia Cuahtecontzi Delint, Victoria Levario Diaz, Sam Pearce, Michael James and Sadiyah Sheikh. They worked alongside students from 3 different departments.

Speakers at the conference included BCFN team member Dr Tom Oliver (University of Bristol) and BCFN alumnus Dr James Armstrong (Imperial College London), who joined other high profile speakers including Dr Eric Drexler (University of Oxford), Professor Peer Fisher (Max Planck Institute), Dr Sandrine Heutz (Imperial College London), Dr Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol) and Dr Ana Neves (University of Exeter).

The conference included workshops run by Vox, UnitDX and Oxford Instruments with topics including solutions to problems experienced in business and setting up a start-up company. There were also student poster sessions, student presentations and social activities including a NanoCabaret organised by BCFN student Kate Oliver. Prizes for best presentations included best poster presentation for BCFN students Laura Fox and Christian Romero, and best oral presentation for Kate Oliver.