Everything about N² Flows 2027
A closer look
Where complex fluids meet computation
Since 1979, the International Workshop on Numerical Methods for Non-Newtonian Flows has convened the researchers who build the equations, algorithms and codes, and who provide the experimental challenges and corresponding data, behind our understanding of fluids that refuse to behave like water. Born from a small circle of pioneers troubleshooting the notorious “High Weissenberg Number Problem,” the series has grown into the field’s longest-running gathering, moving biennially between Europe and the Americas. It remains a small, residential meeting by design — days spent in the same rooms and the same coastline produce the kind of conversation a conference hall rarely does.
N² Flows 2027 carries that tradition into a new era for the field: as machine learning, physics-informed neural networks and data-driven constitutive modelling reshape how we simulate complex fluids, the workshop's founding question — how do we compute what non-Newtonian materials actually do? — is being asked again with new tools. In Chania, on the north-west coast of Crete, we will bring together applied mathematicians, computational scientists and engineers working on viscoelastic, viscoplastic, granular and multiphase flows — from polymer processing and enhanced oil recovery to blood, mucus and the AI methods now entering all of them.
The setting carries its own history. Chania, a Venetian and Ottoman port city, is also the birthplace of Eleftherios Venizelos, and the workshop will be hosted at his family home — now the National Foundation for Research and Studies “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” — a research institution that has kept the city's connection to scholarship and public life alive for decades. N² Flows 2027 is held under the auspices of the Hellenic Society of Rheology and the Portuguese Society of Rheology (SPR), and organised by TheFluidsLab, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras.
The Venizelos House, Halepa
N² Flows 2027 will be hosted at the National Foundation for Research and Studies “Eleftherios K. Venizelos”, in the statesman’s own family home in Halepa — Chania’s 19th-century diplomatic quarter, where the great powers once kept their consulates along the seafront. Built in 1877, the house sheltered Eleftherios Venizelos — modern Greece’s most consequential statesman — for more than thirty years, and is now preserved as a research foundation and house-museum, its rooms kept much as he left them.
Behind that historic setting, the Foundation runs as a working conference venue. Its main hall, the “Stavros S. Niarchos” auditorium, seats 180 at desks fitted with folding individual writing tablets, and is equipped with two 6,200-lumen video projectors, a sound reinforcement system, a speaker’s podium with an integrated microphone, a panel for four to five speakers with four table microphones, two wireless microphones, a laptop connected to the room’s audiovisual system, and high-speed internet access.
The Foundation has hosted meetings at this scale before — among them the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, with 70 participants meeting simultaneously across three rooms, which closed with a public address by Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen on “Peace and Law” (in English, with simultaneous translation), organised under the Foundation’s responsibility.
Hosted by the National Foundation for Research and Studies “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” — venizelos-foundation.gr
Forty-eight years of fluids that break the rules
Water thins under a spinning spoon exactly as Newton’s law predicts. Polymer melts, blood, drilling muds and wet cement do not — and forty-eight years ago, the equations built to simulate them kept failing at the moment they were needed most.
Kenneth Walters
Marcel J. Crochet
Bruce Caswell
Ordinary conferences gave researchers nowhere to show a simulation that had actually broken. So in 1979, three founders — Bruce Caswell, Marcel J. Crochet and Kenneth Walters — set up an invitation-only, residential workshop where failure could be put on the table and taken apart in the open. Providence, Rhode Island, USA — the first workshop, hosted at Brown University’s Center for Fluid Mechanics
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Edition XVII, Blois, France (2012)
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Edition XV, Rhodes, Greece (2007)
Edition IV, Spa, Belgium (1985)
Edition XI, Hotel Vaalsbroek, Vaals, Netherlands (1999)
The full book of presentation abstracts survives from this edition — read it here.
Following nearly every edition since the late 1980s, the workshop’s scientific outcomes have been documented in a peer-reviewed special issue of the Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics (Elsevier) — a record that N² Flows 2027 intends to continue.
Contribute historical material
Group photographs, books of abstracts, programmes and other documents from past editions are welcome — many earlier editions survive only in attendees’ personal archives. Submissions are reviewed by the secretary before anything is published.
Thanks — your email application should now have a message ready to send to the secretary, with your submission details. Attach the file itself there before sending.
What’s confirmed so far
N² Flows 2027 is in early planning. Firm dates for abstracts and registration will be posted here as the organising committee confirms them — check back, or ask to be notified below.
Indicative schedule
A working outline for the week — the detailed programme with session titles and timings will follow once abstracts are reviewed.
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Estimated, subject to confirmation
Figures below are planning estimates based on recent editions of the series — final fees will be published with the call for participation.
Participants
Regular vs. student, by registration date
Includes 1 talk and up to 1 poster (as corresponding author), daily lunch, coffee breaks, welcome reception, social events, dinners, gala dinner and excursion.
Attendees
By registration date
Same as Participants, without a talk or poster slot.
Accompanying Persons
Welcome reception, gala dinner, social programme and excursions.
Submit your abstract
The call for abstracts has not opened yet — the deadline will be posted on the Key dates page. You can register your interest below and the organisers will notify you when submission opens.
Thank you
Your details have been prepared in an email to the organisers. Please send it from your mail client to complete the submission.
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Organised by
John Tsamopoulos
University of Patras, Department of Chemical Engineering — director of TheFluidsLab.
tsamo [at] chemeng.upatras.gr
Supporting N² Flows 2027
N² Flows 2027 is organised under the auspices of the home institutions of its organising committee. Sponsorship opportunities for the full workshop will open as planning progresses.
Organising institutions
The universities of the organising committee, whose support underpins N² Flows 2027.
Shown here as text marks while we confirm each university’s logo artwork for web use — official crests will replace these shortly.
Sponsors & partners
Sponsorship packages for N² Flows 2027 will be announced alongside the call for participation. Get in touch if your organisation would like to support the workshop.
Your organisation
Sponsorship tiers to be announced
Your organisation
Sponsorship tiers to be announced
Your organisation
Sponsorship tiers to be announced
Hear about N² Flows 2027 first
Full details on the programme, invitations and registration will follow as the workshop takes shape. For now, questions are welcome directly by email.
Getting to Chania
From Eleftherios Venizelos Airport (Athens) to Eleftherios Venizelos Home (Halepa, Chania)
- By airChania International Airport (CHQ), with connections via Athens (Athens International Airport, ATH) and direct flights from several European cities in May. Aegean Airlines operates indicatively 3–4 daily flights between Athens and Chania, a flight of about 45 minutes.
- By seaOvernight ferries connect Piraeus (Athens) to Souda, Chania’s port, in about 9 hours — an option worth considering with cabin berths for an overnight crossing. Operators include ANEK Lines and Minoan Lines.
- HalepaA short walk along the seafront from the old Venetian harbour, once lined with foreign consulates and still home to Chania’s grandest 19th-century mansions.
Where to stay
Halepa puts you within walking distance of the venue; Chania’s old town offers a wider range within a short bus, taxi or walk away. Suggestions below, not affiliated bookings.
Halepa — walking distance to the venue
The Venizelos House sits in Halepa itself; these stays are a 5–15 minute walk away.
Chania old town
More choice around the Venetian harbour, roughly 2–3 km from the venue.
Getting from Chania old town to the venue
Indicative options and costs for the ~2–3 km trip to Halepa.
Places around to see and visit
A few short walks from Halepa and the old town worth the detour.
Useful contacts
Emergency and practical numbers for Chania.