FEMS EUROMAT 2021 continues emulating the community with many attractive talks and discussions within the symposia, not forgetting the exhibition booths.

The day started with the plenary talk given by Professor Claudia Draxl Einstein at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin on artificial intelligence. It was introduced by Prof Andreas Ludwig who commented on the outstanding carrier of the plenary speaker.

During her talk, Draxl discussed optimising the use of available data, treating fairly the information (success or not) and sharing her scientific vision for materials research. 

The second plenary speaker of the day was Helmut Clemens, Chair of Physical Metallurgy and Metallic Materials at Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria addressing 'Intermetallic TiAl based alloys – from fundamental research to application.' He was introduced by Prof Ronald Schnitzer who emphasised Helmut Clemens' strong connections with the intermetallic academic and industrial communities. 

The audience split after the plenaries in the different parallel sessions covering the large EUROMAT thematic landscape. The many discussions were gently handled by the chairs on-line using both video and chat tools. Thanks to them for their hard work and keeping all on time for attendees to move between sessions. 

Posters can be visited at any time and the accompanying video monitored for further details by the author, not forgetting the poster sessions.

We are thankful to all delegates for their active participation to the virtual FEMS EUROMAT 2021 conference.

Expectations are high for the next two days with two plenaries, by Josef Fugger, Senior Director R&D at Infineon Technologies, Austria on ‘The increasing relevance of materials science for the power semiconductor industry’ and Prof Merete Tangstad on ‘Research through academia, research institutions and industry,’ while exploring the second set of symposia spanning the different areas.

The events highlights can be monitored on the FEMS Twitter page at https://twitter.com/FEMS_EU 

Prof Eric Le Bourhis

FEMS President (2020–2021)