Membranologists from Visegrad countries, from the whole Europe and some other countries gathered in TatranskΓ© Matliare (High Tatras) in Slovakia at the conference PERMEA 2010 (http://sschi.chtf.stuba.sk/ permea2010/) from September 4 to 8, 2010 to discuss their recent research and application results. The main organiser of the conference was the Slovak Society of Chemical Engineering in close association with the membrane societies of the other Visegrad countries. In this event, 148 participants from 19 countries took part. Three plenary lectures, seven keynote lectures and forty eight lectures were presented in ten sessions. Very interesting results were presented also in two poster sessions with 83 posters.
Very positive feature of the conference was wide participation of 58 PhD students and 12 young researchers (under 35) what makes 47.3 % of all participants. This was achieved also with help of 12 grants supported by the International Visegrad Fund. Young generation of membranologists had an opportunity to discuss their results in a wide international forum and learn novel directions in the development of membrane processes and their applications. Their participation in the contest for extraordinary presentations was very active with 21 presentations of 19 students and young researchers. Eight presentations were awarded by an international jury. The European Membrane Society also supported the conference and granted free membership to the awarded students.