ATIMA Workshop

On 3 March 2025 (9:45 – 18:00h CET) the ATIMA workshop and BNN Networking event took place at TUtheSky in Vienna (Austria). One day around the Advanced Materials Ecosystem!

During the morning session, 9:45-13:45, (in German only and limited for the ATIMA community), participants of the ATIMA workshop dived into emerging trends, thematic developments, and future directions in advanced and innovative materials (AdMa) as we work toward shaping a comprehensive roadmap for AdMa.

Organized by BNN, the first ATIMA workshop was dedicated to the future of AdMa in Austria and beyond. Key players from industry, research, and policy explored trends, challenges, and collaborative opportunities within the AdMa ecosystem. The ATIMA community engaged in an exclusive, in-depth discussion on emerging trends, thematic developments, and strategic directions in AdMa. The workshop was the initial step towards shaping a comprehensive roadmap for advanced innovative materials in Austria, ensuring their role in fostering sustainability and prosperity as well as to integrate the national community in the European ecosystem.

Representatives of each ATIMA platform, the so-called Rapporteurs, leaded their breakout groups getting feedback from the workshop’s participants on Advanced Materials related aspects and analysing where we are “today” and what the audience expected for its “evolution in the future” in the different areas:

Nanomaterials, by Rudi Heer (nanoNET-Austria)
Lightweighting materials, by Wolfgang Bohmayer (Biz-up)
Metal materials, by Gerhard Hackl (ASMET)
Functional & Smart textiles, by Benjamin Poredos (V-trion)
Materials for Additive manufacturing, by Michael Kitzmantel (AM-Austria)
AdMa-overlapping aspects, by Clemens Wolf (BNN)

This collaborative effort is a crucial step toward sustainability and prosperity, reinforcing Austria’s role in the future of advanced materials.

A big thank you to all participants for their valuable contributions!

The afternoon continued with the BNN Networking Event. It showed BNN’s key position in the European AdMa ecosystem. The event was dedicated to discuss the vision and the future activities to connect regional, national and European initiatives in this field, i.e., InnoMatSyn project, overlapping aspects (e.g., SSbD) and how the implementation of those is supported by BNN. Participants got in touch with relevant national and European initiatives as well as key players to discuss national strengths and trends. The European Commission’s vision on the way forward towards a strong European AdMa-community, which shall be supported by connecting regional, national and international activities and effort was presented by keynote speech of Jürgen Tiedje (Head of Unit E.3 – Industrial Transformation, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission (EC)). The event closed with a round table discussion with the experts Falko Loher (Policy Officer, Austrian Federal Ministry on Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK)) who informed about the progress on the IPCEI “Circular Advanced Materials”, Roland Brandenburg (Coordinator, European research programme M-ERA.NET, Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)), Eva-Kathrin Schillinger (Managing Director, IAM-I Association), and Jürgen Tiedje. The round table was moderated by Andreas Falk (Coordinator of ATIMA & InnoMatSyn, CEO of BNN). The round table led to a better understanding of the ongoing initiatives in the field of AdMa and how they are interlinked. Additionally, the participants got to know how to join, get involved and contribute to these activities, and what will be the future cornerstones of the European AdMa ecosystem.