29th March - 6th April 2025
General Information
The BCA/CCG Intensive Teaching School in X-Ray Structure Analysis will run from 17:30 on Saturday March 29th until 17:00 on Saturday April 5th 2025, with students who are attending the optional Olex2 workshop also attending 10:00-16:00 on Sunday April 6th 2025.
Accomodation, breakfast and dinner will be at Collingwood College. Morning and afternoon sessions, involving lectures and small-group (7-8 students + tutor) tutorial problems will be held in the HUB at the Mount Oswald site (~10 minutes walk uphill from Collingwood). Lunch will be in Van Mildert College a short walk from the HUB.
The school will start with an introduction to the subject at 17:30 on the first Saturday March 29th followed by dinner in Collingwood College at 18:30. There will be a second lecture at 20:00 on the same day. Registration will be open from 14:00hs in the Collingwood college foyer. If you arrive earlier you can collect your room keys from the porter's lodge. If you have travel difficulties and know that you'll be late arriving, please contact the porter's lodge and leave a message for us. The college phone number is 0191 334 5000 (Usually 00 44 191 3345000 from abroad). If you're coming from abroad and need extra nights' accommodation please let us know as soon as possible. The school will finish after the course dinner on the night of Saturday April 5th, hence we do not expect people to leave until after breakfast on the morning of April 6th. If you plan to leave right after the course dinner, please let us know before your arrival or you will be charged for that last night accomodation.
If you're travelling from abroad and wondering what to pack expect typically unpredictable British spring weather. Some years it has been warm enough to sit and have coffee outside during the course, other years we've had snow. You should bring a rain coat/umbrella for the walk from college to college (~10 minutes). The dress code is casual but you might want to consider something smarter for the course dinner on the last night.
All meals (apart from dinner on the free afternoon) will be provided during the course and the college bar will be open during the evening sessions. If you have any particular food allergies or intolerances, please let us know as soon as possible in order for us to arrange suitable replacements. The nearest ATM and shops to college are about a 15 minute walk so bring what you need with you.
All teaching material will be provided. However it would be useful if you could bring a scientific calculator and a notebook/paper for taking notes. You will not need (or be able to use) a laptop for the course, though it may be possible to use this in your room (More information on this will be provided soon here).
We would advise you to review before the school, any undergraduate course you were taught on crystallography or any simple crystallography textbook. In addition, it would be very convenient for you to review simple mathematics topics, including vectors, trigonometry and matrix operations such as multiplication, transpose, inverse, determinant calculation, etc.Travelling Information
Information on travelling to Durham is available from the link on the left. Information about Collingwood is also available following the side links. The accommodation is about a 20 minutes walk from the train station or an ~5 minute taxi ride.
If you're arriving at Newcastle airport you can either take a taxi from the airport to Durham or use the metro to Newcastle city centre and then a train to Durham.
If you're driving parking should be available at Collingwood College but this will be confirmed nearer the school.
Many thanks to our sponsors, without whom it would not be possible to hold the 20th school:
CCG, IUCr, ECA, Almac Group, Bruker, Rigaku, CCDC, BCA-IG, RSC Advances, CrystEngComm, Journal of Materials Chemistry C.
