Back
Identifying the frontiers of science for the development of complex, adaptive material systems was the key focus of the five-day Kármán Conference ‘From molecular materials to complex adaptive systems’, which took place in Kasteel Vaalsbroek (Vaals /NL) last week. Being jointly organized by DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, RWTH Aachen University and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart), the conference comprised a series of lectures given by international pioneers in this highly active field of research. Representing the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart), Metin Sitti, Laura Na Liu, Peer Fischer and Heike Böhm have been involved as speakers.
The aim of the conference was to identify future material systems, which resemble biological structures both in their complexity and functionality. Numerous processes that run autonomously in nature – such as self-healing, self-cleaning, responding to environmental signals, conversion of energy and locomotion – are major challenges for those engaged in the development of new synthetic materials. In this context, a detailed understanding of the underlying molecular processes is essential. At the same time, the boundaries between individual disciplines such as physics, biology, chemistry, medicine or engineering become more and more indistinct.
Top-class lectures on cutting edge research, as well as, intense scientific discussion amongst the 150 participants were core elements of the conference. Organized social activities and evening poster sessions offered numerous opportunities for informal conversations between junior scientists and established experts. This Kármán Conference, was first in a line of future conferences to come, which deal with cutting edge research across all disciplines. The conference series is named after physicist and aerospace expert Theodore von Kármán. The conference was strongly supported by the Collaborative Research Center 985 ‘Functional Microgels and Microgel Systems’ as well as by DWI’s association of friends and the ‘Exploratory Research Space’ (ERS, RWTH Aachen University). ERS supports new, unconventional research ideas and seeks to establish this conference format with alternating topics.