Looking back on a successful SIM Materials Forum 2022
On Wednesday May 11th, the 2022 edition of the annual SIM Materials Forum took place. Due to the ongoing covid situation, the event on materials innovation couldn’t take place for 2 years, but this year it was back, with a new name and a very successful edition! SIM is pleased to look back on a great event full of inspiration, engaging conversations, new contacts, and interesting opportunities.
May 11th, the SIM Materials Forum was proven to be the place to be to discover material innovations. On this eighth edition, 17 enthusiastic speakers came and gave a fascinating in-depth lecture. All of them came to share their vision and latest innovations within four hot topics, being Climate, Clean Energy & Mobility, Innovative Applications, Circular Materials and Modelling & Digitalisation. For each of these lecture tracks, the visitors could choose between no less than four speakers. All of them, whether experts from universities, start-ups, or large companies, provided the visitors with new insights based on their own success stories or SIM-projects by means of cases or practical examples.
Alongside the various lecture tracks, the visitors could also discover material innovations and discuss science & engineering at the materials market. The materials market featured various booths and poster presentations. At the booths, 19 companies and research institutes presented their material innovations to the wider public, where they were able to interact with them and perhaps reach new insights together. Between these booths, 39 posters were also displayed. It was a chance for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers of different universities and research institutes to present their work to a wider audience of stakeholders in innovative materials. All posters were linked to an active or recently finalised SIM-supported project.
SIM, as usual, hosted an award ceremony with a group prize of 750 euros for the poster that received the most votes from the audience. After examining the competing posters, the audience could vote for 5 finalists to win the Poster Award. Following this first voting session, the 5 finalists were invited to convince the audience during a 2-minute elevator pitch. The rightful winner of the Poster Award 2022 is Hellen De Coninck of the Additive Manufacturing team of KU Leuven, with an interesting poster about the reinforcement of 3D printed polymer structures with pieces of glass fibre. This poster is based on research in the context of the SIM Flaminco project, and co-authors are Sebastian Meyers, Peter Van Puyvelde and Brecht Van Hooreweder. An in-depth interview with Hellen and her team will follow later, so keep an eye on our socials and news page!
In sum, SIM looks back on a successful Materials Forum with interesting content and ample networking opportunities to get to know the materials community in Flanders and beyond. Many new opportunities were identified and inspiration was gained. During a survey, 93 percent of the visitors also indicated that they were satisfied with the event.
Couldn’t make it this year? The SIM Materials Forum will take place again next year, probably in May. More concrete information will follow later through our communication channels.
In order for you to be able to reflect on the event as well, we would like to share with you some impressions of the event:
