On 8 November 2026, Cankarjev dom hosted the ceremony for the highest national awards for outstanding achievements in scientific research and technology, development, and innovation: the Zois and Puh Awards and Recognitions, and the Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia award.

We are delighted that one of this year’s recipients is our colleague and Head of Department, Prof. Hana Uršič Nemevšek. Prof. Uršič Nemevšek received the Zois Recognition for important achievements in ceramic layers for energy storage and conversion.

Electronic devices keep getting smaller and more powerful, and we also want them to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Special ceramic layers, the focus of Prof. Hana Uršič Nemevšek’s research, play an important role here. She is one of the world’s leading researchers in ceramic layers for energy storage and conversion, and her work paves the way for smaller, more energy-efficient, and more environmentally friendly devices of the future.

She introduced aerosol deposition to Slovenia, a method for producing ceramic layers at room temperature. Together with her colleagues, she was the first in the world to develop a flexible ceramic layer thinner than a human hair that can provide cooling, sense touch or vibration, and store energy. Such layers could be used to cool microchips in phones and laptops, as sensors in smartwatches and flexible parts of medical devices, and as tiny capacitors for storing electrical energy.