DCN at EUROMAT Sevilla 2013

EUROMAT 2013 - Summary by Margarethe Hofmann, Vice President FEMS

The Federation of European Materials Societies, FEMS held its bi-annual conference EUROMAT 2013 from September 8 to 13, 2013 in Sevilla Spain. It was organised by their member societies Sociedad Española de Materiales (SOCIEMAT) with its President Prof. Paloma Fernández Sánchez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and Sociedade Portuguesa de Materiais (SPM) with its President Professor Paula Vilarinho, Univ. of Aveiro Aveiro, Portugal. Prof. Frank Mücklich, Univ. of Saarland Saarbrücken Germany chaired the Scientific Committee, supported by his co-chair Agustín R. González-Elipe ICMS – CSIC Sevilla, Spain and the various other members of the Scientific Board.

Sevilla with its very comfortable Congress Center at BARCELÓ RENACIMIENTO assembled around 2000 delegates from countries all around the world. With 22 sessions running in parallel during 6 days the various topics in materials science and engineering could be covered with 53 symposia (1374 oral contributions and 939 posters).

The Scientific Committee made again a very good choice of outstanding plenary and invited lectures, which opened the sessions held during the whole day until the evening and poster sessions as well. Three of the plenary lectures were given from FEMS Awardees

Michel Rappaz, Institute of Materials Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland, who received the FEMS European Materials Medal, spoke about "Multi-twinned nanoparticles, quasicrystals and twinned dendrites: What is the link?“ and by this about an effort in materials science which started in the 1970s and which is still a highly interesting topic in the field of metallic materials.
Johan A. Martens, Center for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, KU Leuven, Belgium, recieved the FEMS Materials Innovation Prices and gave a lecture on "Opportunities in Synthesis and Application of Nanoporous Materials“ spanning the frame about industrial and medical applications as well and by this made clear that materials science and engineering is one oft he most important field from the academic and the economic perspective.
Michel Perez, MATEIS - UMR CNRS 5510, F-69621 Villeurbanne, France received award of FEMS Materials Science and Technology. He gave a talk entitled "Multiscale approach to steel design“, dealing with modeling, another very important field in materials science.

In addition very attractive tutorials were given on Sunday September 8, 2013 on:

Nanoscale characterization and processing of graphene and other monoatomic materials - Vincenzo Palermo and Eric Anglaret
Nanobiosensors based on Nanomaterials - Laura M. Lechuga and Arben Merkoci
3D analysis on the micro, nano and atomic scale - Didier Blavette, Rene de Kloe, Christian Kübel, Frank Mücklich and Alexander Rack
Fundamentals of Materials Science Materials Constitution - Günter Effenberg, Hans-Jürgen Seifert, Raimund Podloudsky

A new format was introduced in this congress with "Lunch sessions“ which covered the whole value chain from education and research in materials science and engineering, the importance of global market and resources and the recycling of materials as well. 100 to 230 people attended these sessions, which is a very good success for such a new format. Speakers like Herbert von Bose from the EU Commission informed about the next research program Horizon 2020 in which materials will play a very important role in all three pillars from the "Excellence of Science“ to "Industrial Leadership“ and "Societal Challenges“. Industrial leadership was shown by companies like Constellium with Dr. Tim Warner, who gave an overview on what is required for next generations of aluminium alloys in airplanes and cars – weight reduction and improvement of mechanical properties and Umicore with Dr. Christian Hagelüken, active in the recycling area especially for less common and precious elements which are integrated in so many of our commodities like cell phones, computers or lighting systems.

Uwe Haug, Managing Director „Steinbeis Forschungsund Innovationszentren GmbH“, Constantin Vahlas CNRS and Interuniversity Materials Engineering Center (CIRIMAT), Toulouse and active in the European Science Foundation, Strasbourg and Prof. David Jarvis European Space Agency discussed the challenges to bridge knowledge from education to research and development and bring it into the markets. Prof. Armin Reller then discussed this topic in two presentations from of the perspective of sustainability and asked how Criticality of Materials may change future perspectives for industrial application. Further speakers included ESA Tommaso Ghidini, Head of the Materials Technology Section and Dr. Derk Bol Program manager, Materials innovation institute M2i, The Netherlands covered topics like Advanced Materials, Coatings and Manufacturing Processes from a perspective of ESA and A strategy for substitution as part of the ERA-MIN roadmap, in both cases very interesting activities in Europe. Flavio Soldera from University Saarbrücken, Patrick Bressler from Fraunhofer Brussels, Ehrenfried Zschech from Fraunhofer Dresden and Predient FEMS and Margarethe Hofmann, ESM Foundation and Vice Predident FEMS organised and chaired these sessions which were appreciated by the conference participants.

FEMS arranged ist General Assembly, President’s Day and Board Meetings in combination with the conference. At the General Assembly the President of FEMS, the Vice President of FEMS as well as the members oft he Executive Board (EC) were elected or re-elected fort he period of 2014 to 2016. Dr. M. Hofmann was elected as President of FEMS and Dr. Brett Suddell as Vice President. Prof. Juan Jose de Damborenea, who was member for 4 years was replaced by Prof. Paloma Fernández Sánchez representing Sociedad Española de Materiales