The LightChEC Symposium and Summer School 2018 was attended by 44 young researchers of which 10 were external of the LightChEC program and came from other swiss research institutes (EMPA, EPFL) or other European Universities (Imperial College London, Bogazici University, Université Grenoble Alpes, University of Helsinki, Uppsala University). Most of the participants were PhD students (70%) followed by PostDocs (23%) and Master students (7%).

The Symposium preceeded the Summer School and featured three local speakers and three international speakers.There were two lively poster sessions in the evening after dinner following the Symposium (and the previous evening) where intense scientific discussions took place into the night. As there were ~20% external participants at this summer school, this was a great opportunity to discuss and to initiate potential collaborations with groups outside of Switzerland.

The Summer School featured four external speakers, each covering a different aspect of the broad field of solar fuels. Each lecturer had two hours of lecture-style teaching, followed by 1.5 hours of group work, which earned the students their ECTS point. The group sessions were implemented for the first time this year and have been very much appreciated by the participants.