The Central European Training School has been organized bi-annually, then annually by the Budapest Neutron Center (BNC) since 1992. This year’s school was the 13^th in the series. Beside short theoretical introduction to neutron scattering and other neutron based methods the school provides actual hands-on practice in studies of structure and composition of matter. The participants expressed lively interest in the theoretical presentations and the hands-on practices alike.

Due to space restriction at the experimental stations, twenty-eight of the registered fifty candidate BSC and MSC and doctoral students, post docs, young researchers had to be selected from 13 countries (Albania, Argentina, South Korea, Egypt, France, Georgia, China, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey). Selection was made on the participants’ motivation, home project and recommendations. 

15 hours theoretical lectures were held by leading researchers from ESS, Lund, Sweden, JINR, Dubna, Russia, Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin, Germany and the University of Vienna, Austria as well as BNC, Budapest Hungary. In groups of five, the participants carried out hands-on practices of a total of 15 (5 x 3) hours per group at the experimental stations, tutored by BNC experts. This year the participants were offered to choose from eight experimental stations representing six different methods, such as low-angle neutron scattering, neutron diffraction, neutron reflection, neutron activation analysis, prompt-gamma activation analysis and neutron radiography. On the opening day of the school, the participants displayed posters and gave a short presentation of their home project. On the closing day of the school the attendees received their well-deserved diplomas.