On the 1st of December, 2022, we held our 2nd General Assembly of 2022 as an hybrid meeting with more than 20 participants physically in the DOW facilities (in Seneffe, Belgium) and about the same number participated online.

The session started with a brief welcoming and introduction session by our Chairman Eric Peeters. Our Managing Director Philippe Jacques proceeded with the verification of the quorum and approval of the minutes and agenda. The Director continued with the overview of the activities and achievements of 2022 and the outlook of strategy and activities for the next year 2023, very much focused on the recently launched Advanced Materials 2030 Initiative (AMI2030) in which EMIRI is highly involved.

In addition, we had the pleasure to welcome Helene Chraye, Deputy Director Clean Planet, who presented an overview of the Horizon Europe Cluster 5 activities and how these are linked to the other clusters. She specially focused on REPowerEU, the Joint European action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy. We also had the pleasure to have with us Dr. Ulrich SCHMID, Head of Unit E3 Industrial Transformation at DG Research and Innovation who focused his presentation on the strategic materials agenda very much linked with our AMI2030 initiative.

After a lovely networking lunch, we had the opportunity to learn more about DOW’s Silicones activities in Seneffe’s plant by visiting their labs.

Apart from the General Assembly on December 1st, we also offered some side activities on the previous day, November 30th, hosted by our colleagues at MateriaNova, in Mons.

On November 30th, after a great networking lunch sponsored by MateriaNova, we hosted an hybrid AMI2030 workshop in Mons with around 30 participants physically and around 90 online. During this workshop, the new initiative was presented and we used this session to gather feedback from the participants to finalise the Materials Roadmap. After the workshop, we also had the opportunity to visit MateriaNova’s facilities in Mons.

At night, we gathered for dinner to celebrate one last time the 10th anniversary of EMIRI and the end of a great year for the materials community!