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Afterwards, every time we met new colleagues at conferences, we would again invite them to the group and so it slowly began to grow. Reaching the 2015 ECerS conference in Toledo, Dominique and I started discussing that a more professional network for ceramic researchers should be started based on the idea of the Ceramic Social Club. This needed resources and we turned towards the ECerS. Looking into it, we found that networking activities for young ceramists had already been launched in past ECerS conferences but needed to be developed further. We also found out that JECS trust was funding such networking activities.

A plan was then devised to renew the Networking activities for young researchers within ECerS based on the ‘Ceramic Social Club’ community, and a concept based on social media outreach, and the name of the network at that time “Young Ceramic Researchers Network”, was officially changed to its actual form “Young Ceramists Network” – YCN. Along with me and Dominique, a committee of five was established in 2016 to implement the plan with Marie Lasgorceix, Andraz Kocjan and Laura Silvestroni joining the first YCN committee.

The idea was pitched to several ECerS PEC and JECS Trust board members on the 11th of June 2016 in BCRC Mons. The pitch was successful and later with the help of Véronique Huart (as young as ever!), we applied for and received JECS trust funding to renew the networking activities for young researchers within ECerS. We started the work with the existing Ceramic Social Club, consisting of around 100 members at the time. By the end of 2020, the group had transformed its name into Young Ceramists Network and had grown to consist of more than 800 members. Later, when boomers made Facebook great again, the YCN LinkedIn group was reactivated and YCN sprawled into new social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Discord. Eventually the original Ceramic Social Club/YCN Facebook group was removed to the history bin. Many nice stories could be told of what happened during these years, but I will leave it for another time…

Then for the future of YCN, I would like to highlight the description of the original Ceramic Social Club group. I firmly believe that the YCN of today is still built on the same principle, only difference now being that the YCN has become a global network.

“There is a simple point to this group: Bring likeminded, easy-going ceramists in the same place, to keep in touch with good friends and to get information of new ceramic meetings across Europe and to post any interesting news or advances in our field. What it will be in the future, is up to you!”

I and the whole first committee have already passed the torch forward and now follow YCN activities as alumni committee members.

Therefore, to anyone reading this small history bit: what YCN will be in the future, is up to you!

With best regards,

Dr. Erkka J. Frankberg

Tampere University

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