Softmat took part in honouring cooperation with Ukraine in chemistry

At the instigation of Fabrice Gamboa, vice-president in charge of international relations and mobility, Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University organised a meeting with the Ukrainian scientific community on 21 November 2023. A partnership with the Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv has been in place for 25 years.

Following an introduction by Jean-Marc Broto, President of the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, Kseniia Smyrnova, Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian university, spoke live from Kyiv, emphasising that the two universities are not only partners but also friends.

Valérie Maraval (member of the LCC) and Stéphane Mazières, teacher-researcher in the P3R team, described the history of cooperation in chemistry between the 2 universities.

The audience was then able to listen to testimonials from Ukrainian women researchers who have been hosted in laboratories in Toulouse as part of the PAUSE program set up by the Collège de France: there are 6 in Toulouse out of the 200 from Ukraine, currently hosted in France. At Softmat, Larysa Kunytska has been welcome in the IDeAS team since July 2022.
All the Ukrainian students were, of course, invited to the event: around fifteen of them also gave experience feedback, including Maksym Odnoroh, a former doctoral student in the P3R team, who defended his thesis in October 2023 and is continuing his post-doctoral research at Softmat.

Jean-Claude Dardelet, deputy mayor of Toulouse with responsibility for international relations, also attended the meeting, which ended with a convivial buffet.