Editorial
Here is the latest edition of Liquid Crystals Today. As usual, I hope that you will find the mixture of research papers, book reviews, conference reports and other news items stimulating and interesting. I believe that they really represent the broad activities of our society and research community.
This issue's research report is by Igor Musevic, who was awarded the LG Philips Display Mid Carrier Award at the last International Liquid Crystal Conference in Jeju. His paper is concerned with the physics of colloidal particles in liquid crystals, and I am sure that many of you will find this most interesting. It certainly does cover one of the hot topics in current liquid crystal research.
It was a very busy summer with a range of national and international conferences and workshops taking place. Personally, I very much enjoyed the hospitality and scientific discussions in Bandol, at a rather small and selective, but yet very diverse workshop, which was sponsored by the European Science Foundation. Maybe the concept of bringing together researchers from related fields but with different expertise will catch on in the future to further develop and enrich our research.
I also very much enjoyed the meetings in Colmar and Zaragoza, the European Liquid Crystal Conference and the International Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Conference, respectively. Reports on these conferences are included in this issue of Liquid Crystals Today, together with a range of further reports on other meetings worldwide. I would like to thank all contributors for sharing their views and experiences with us.
This issue of Liquid Crystals Today also marks a novelty: it features the first editorial interview, which I had with Jan Lagerwall from the University of Halle in Germany. Last year, Jan redesigned the web page of the International Liquid Crystal Society (ILCS), adding numerous features, such as the ‘best texture photograph of the month’ competition, or the international group location map, etc. His efforts definitely make our society shine in a new and brighter light, providing a professional first contact with the ILCS to members, but more importantly, also to the rest of the world. Please read what he has to say. Please also provide him with the latest news and information so that the ILCS website can be kept as up to date as possible. (Please do not forget to copy me in, so that I can follow up the news and possibly cover it in more detail in Liquid Crystals Today.)
It is my intention to develop the ‘editorial interviews’ for the journal, not necessarily on an issue to issue basis, but nevertheless quite regularly. These will by no means be restricted to academics. I see this as a good way to communicate possibly overlooked issues and aspects of all parts of our community, not only relating to research projects directly; students, postgraduates, postdocs and academics are of course all invited to contribute. One topic I will most likely address in the future is the change of liquid crystal research since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Another may be the experience of postdocs going abroad. Please do get in touch with me if you want to contribute or have other topics to suggest.