Information about the general programme
The Hercules school gathers about:
50 full-time participants in the A session (Physics and chemistry of condensed matter)
20 full-time participants in the B session (Biomolecular and soft condensed matter)
a few part-time participants
Since 2022, the part-time participants follow the school online, from home, which allows to accept many more.
Programme in Grenoble (weeks 1, 2, 4, 5 or 1, 2, 3, 5):
All participants first attend about 1.5 week of common lectures then they are split between the two sessions to follow about 2.5 weeks of lectures from session A or session B. During the first week, presentations of the ILL and ESRF are given, and a visit of these two large scale facilities is also organised, together with poster session(s), allowing all participants to present their research work. The full-time participants also follow practicals, labs, and tutorials, in small groups of 4 to 6 persons.
The schedule for the ongoing Hercules school is only accessible to the participants.
Programme outside Grenoble (week 3 or 4):
All full-time participants travel to one of our partner large scale facility site, to follow practicals in small groups of 4 persons, and, at most of our partner sites, additional lectures. The partners who participate in Hercules and the lectures they offer both differ from one year to the other and is thus not specified here.
Social activities:
Traditionally, a few social activities are organised in Grenoble: a welcome cocktail at the beginning of the school, a gala dinner on the first Friday evening, a snowshoe outing on the first Sunday, and a wine & cheese party on the last day of the school. Our partner sites also propose various social activities. For the 2023 session, tickets for the cable car will be given to the participants, but the snowshoe outing won't be organised.
Information about the schedule in Grenoble
Most of the lectures taking place in Grenoble last 1.5 hours, with a 10 minutes break in the middle. The first lecture of the day starts at 8:40 and the last one finishes at 17:50. Note that a couple of short presentations / meetings will take place up to 19:00. The practicals, labs, and tutorials will all start at 9:00 in the morning and finish around 12:30 (13:00 the latest), then at 14:00 in the afternoon until around 17:30 (18:00 the latest).
To have a better idea of the detailed schedule, you may have a look at the booklets of the Previous Hercules Sessions.