Top team full name: Team foR top research Into ANorGanic matEriaLs
Top team abbreviated name: TRIANGEL
The TRIANGEL team includes university teachers and scientists from the Institute of Chemical Sciences and staff of the Institute of Physical Sciences at the UPJŠ Faculty of Science in Košice, who have been working together for several years on topics that are unique within Slovakia; they belong among top research objectives and which were introduced by the TRIANGEL team at UPJŠ and in Slovakia. Their cooperation is expressed by their common original scientific works. The research focus of the team members concerns three categories of research according to the ISI Web of Science, specifically (i) Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear; (ii) Physics, Condensed Matter; (iii) Materials Science, Characterisation & Testings. Symbiosis and interpenetration of these three categories of research is also expressed by the team acronym, TRIANGEL.
The team is relatively young. The oldest member of the team is 48, the youngest 30 years of age. The age group average is 39 years. Of all six top teams at UPJŠ, TRIANGEL belongs to the youngest in age. Not only does the age differ the team from other top UPJŠ teams, but it also had to build up its position in the difficult competitive conditions at the edge of changing the social order. At a time when the oldest members of the team entered scientific life, there was no relative certainty in the research provided before the year 1989, nor the instrumental and grant options that were brought by the present period. Support to research was relatively weak, instrumental infrastructure de facto did not exist. And in that period, the team members, thanks to their expertise and effort, laid the foundations for the TRIANGEL team.
The team operates in the field of research into nanoporous materials and metal-organic frameworks, magnetic nanoparticles and magnetic micro wires. Most of the team members have been staying abroad at recognized scientific institutions, from where they have brought new themes and have gradually developed them from the basics systematically up to an internationally recognized level. The team develops the themes that are intensively studied on a world scale, but they have been absent in Slovakia, that is why this team is unique in Slovakia. At the same time, it should be emphasised that almost all the scientific works published by the team members originated mostly, as to the idea and implementation, at the UPJŠ workplace in Košice.
The interconnection of team members in the existing scientific works is illustrated in the diagram below.
Diagram: Linking team members to publications. Full arrows show co-authorship of the publications that are part of the top team application, broken arrows show co-authoring on other works.
Even at its low average age, the team has excellent scientometric criteria. Taking into account the average age of the team, the proportion of the works thematically directly related to UPJŠ issues, the team belongs among the top from among six scientific teams.
The members of the team are active in grant agencies (VEGA No. 3 – Zeleňák), member of the APVV Programme “Supporting R & D in Enterprises and Supporting Business Cooperation with Research Organizations for the Period 2016-2019 (Varga)”.
The TRIANGEL team members are very active in the field of education, where they have a non-trivial level of teaching each semester at the first two levels of study. Education of PhD students is also actively pursued. The team members successfully completed supervision of 10 PhD students, supervision of 12 PhD students in the process of training continues. They contribute to improving the quality of PhD studies also through their activities in study-related commissions.
Member of the team, Prof. Varga, is active in the field of application of research into practice, he founded a spin off company for the use of micro wires in practice – RVmagnetics a.s., where he is the chairperson of the board. He is the Chairperson of the Slovak Magnetic Society and a member of the Working Group of the Research Agency for Material Research and Nanotechnology.
In addition to the research field, the team member, Assoc. Prof. Zeleňák, is also active in the management of the UPJŠ Faculty of Science, where he has been in the position of Vice Dean for Education since 2011 and is in charge of all three levels of study. He is a member of the Academic Board of the UPJŠ Faculty of Science and of the Academic Board of the Institute of Geotechnology of the SAS in Košice.
