The 2024 summer students at DESY's Hamburg campus. (Photo: DESY / Marta Mayer)
As the summer comes, so too come each year the summer students to DESY. This year, a total of 112 participants from 27 countries are performing research for seven weeks on the Hamburg and Zeuthen campus. Particularly of interest this summer: For the first time, the DESY-Ukraine Summer School is happening simultaneously, with 14 participants coming from Ukraine.
"During the Ukraine Winter School, we had so many positive responses from the participants, that we decided to expand it to a summer school programme," says coordinator and DESY scientist Olaf Behnke, who, together with his organisational team initiated the expanded Summer School. "There have always been students from Ukraine in our Summer School programme, but we are excited to be able to offer even more spots to them this year." The idea for the DESY Ukraine Winter School began in 2022. At that time, as a response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, DESY decided to offer students in the Ukraine an intensive course that would give them the chance to work at a large physics laboratory. Due to the war, many of the students needed to interrupt their studies at that time.
The Summer Student programme and the Ukraine Summer School both run from 16 July to 5 September. "The core building block of our programme is that the participants are integrated into one of the many DESY research groups, says Behnke. That includes projects in photon science, elementary and astroparticle Physics, and accelerator research. Some projects also take place on the campus of the European XFEL X-ray laser in Schenefeld. "In addition to this, there is also a lecture programme about DESY research topics and visits to DESY facilities," says Behnke. In Zeuthen, a team led by astrophysicist Gernot Maier guides the students.
In each project, the students (on the DESY campus affectionately called "Summies") gain practical experience with real scientific investigations, analyses, theories, and experiments, and they make contacts that could be vital to a future career in these fields. "Many summer students return to DESY as doctoral students, postdocs, or even as senior researchers," says Behnke. "That's the best feedback to our Summer School that we could imagine."
More information:
DESY Summer School
DESY-Ukraine Summer School
Programme of both the general Summer School and the DESY-Ukraine Summer School
The application period for the next Summer Student Programme runs from 15 November 2024 to 31 January 2025
