Main part of the 3rd meeting of the open Workgroup was the Information Event on the Joint Market and Technology Study on High-Performance SMC. The study will provide in-depth knowledge on SMC applications and technologies, key challenges and technological solutions for establishing High-Performance SMC. The workgroup meeting was an open workgroup involving companies outside the AZL Partner Network with an interest in HP-SMC. We thank Ste- ven Bakker from Saertex, Dr. Alex Schmidt from Hexion and Dr. Stefan Fliescher from Textechno for their keynote presentations. Please see the minutes here and contact Dr. Michael Effing for further information.

Renewable and clean energy technologies are gaining importance. With solar panels and wind turbines, people can now generate their own electricity which makes energy storage more and more essential. Conbility proposes an international joint market and technology study about energy storage systems. Find out more here.

The German government has recognized the importance of the lightweight industry in their so-called coalition agreement. At federal level, the framework for a broad industrial use has been under construction since 2015, with a specific contact person responsible for lightweight at the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie), abbreviated BMWi, a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. The creation of the overview of lightweight-related activities in Germany is called "Leichtbauatlas" and contains today 302 players. Please follow the link for further information.

The program of the upcoming 3rd ICC in Stuttgart from September 18-19 2017 is now available. Please have a look at the exciting presentations here.

Last week, AZL´s new home - the Production Engineering Cluster at the RWTH Aachen Campus - was officially opened. The Cluster with a gross floor area of 32,000 m² is one of 16 new buildings which are built up in order to connect research and industry. AZL is represented with offices and a machinery hall with industry-scale equipment in the Cluster and will provide offices for AZL Partner Companies.