At the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society, a representative from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council gave a presentation regarding the UK funding landscape for liquid crystals, the slides of which are made available here: EPSRC_LC_talk.

The website for the European Conference on Liquid Crystals is now live and accepting abstract submissions.

The BLCS Annual Meeting 2015, will take place 30 March – 1 April at Sheffield Hallam University. The conference will cover cutting edge research across all elements of liquid crystal science, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, materials science and bio-science.

Abstract Submission and Registration are now open via the conference website.

Deadline for abstract submission: Friday 6 March.

(Also please note that a “late registration” surcharge will apply after Monday 16 March.)

The BLCS is pleased to announce that the next European Conference on Liquid Crystals will take place 5 – 11 September, 2015 at the University of Manchester, UK. This conference is co-chaired by Andrew Masters and Helen Gleeson.

Further details will follow in due course.

Update 16 March 2015: Link to conference website.

The BLCS Annual Meeting 2015 will be held 30th March – 1st April at Sheffield Hallam University, chaired by Prof. Douglas Cleaver. Further details and website to be launched in due course.

BLCS member and past Chairman of the Society, Professor John Goodby FRS, has won the 2014 AkzoNobel UK Science Award.

Prof. Goodby, who is Chair of Materials Chemistry at the University of York, was honoured for “profound discoveries and outstanding contributions in the fields of self-assembling and self-organizing materials and in particular the synthesis, characterization and application of liquid crystalline materials which are used in numerous high technology applications, including computer and imaging displays, sensors, surfaces coatings, films and adhesives”.

See also:
AkzoNobel website
University of York news website

The British Liquid Crystal Society Annual Conference, BLCS 2014, will take place in Durham between 14-16 April 2014. It will be the latest in a sequence of annual conferences dating back to the 1980s. The conference will cover cutting edge research across all elements of liquid crystal science, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, materials science and bio-science.

• applications of liquid crystals
• photonics
• phases and phase behaviour
• physical properties of liquid crystals
• liquid crystal synthesis
• theory and modelling of liquid crystals
• lyotropic, colloidal and chromonic liquid crystals
• bent core liquid crystals
• liquid crystal composites
• bio-inspired liquid crystals

Abstract Submission and Registration are now open via the conference website.

Conference flyer: BLCS_Annual Meeting_2014_flyer_b (updated 29 Jan 2014).

Call for Participants to UK-Korea Workshop on Soft Matter
Date: 18-21 March 2014
Venue: National Institute for Mathematical Sciences, South Korea

The British Council Researcher Links scheme is inviting Early Career Researchers (within 10 years of their doctoral degree) from the UK and South Korea to apply to attend a workshop entitled ‘Soft Matter: Analysis, Applications and Challenges’. Deadline for applications: 1 February 2014. See here for further details.

The Inter-Continental Advanced Materials for Photonics Summer School on Liquid Crystals will be held in Cambridge on 26 June – 6 July 2013. The deadline for registrations has now been extended to 15 June. For further details see the I-CAMP 2013 website.

With great regret the BLCS wish to announce the very sad news that Professor George Gray FRS has died. George will be greatly missed as a friend and colleague to so many within the liquid crystal community. We are forever grateful to George for his seminal contributions to the field of liquid crystals and will greatly miss his knowledge, his enthusiasm for science and his love of life.