Awards

Oguz Okay received the Polymer Networks Group Award for his outstanding scientific contributions on hydrogels, microgels, macroporous gels, and cryogels. We thank him for more than 30 years of continuous support for our community. The honorarium of 1000,- € was sponsored by the Polymer Networks Group.

Tao Xie (Zhejiang University, China)  was honored with the Polymer Networks Group Research Award for his outstanding work in the field of polymer networks and gels in past five years. His recent work highlighted by this award covers the fields of shape memory polymers, sustainable thermosets, and 3D printing of photo-polymer networks. His discoveries allow for trigger-free shape-shifting, polycondensation based 3D printing chemistry for which the printed network can be closed-loop recycled, or for high performance 3D printing by which the material properties are optimized by orchestrating three different contributions to the mechanical performance. These achievements were presented in a plenary talk in the award session of the meeting. The honorarium of 1000,- € was sponsored by Procter & Gamble.

Young scientists at an early stage of the career are honored by the Karel Dušek Award. At the conference, we had an outstanding list of nominations for this award. After an extensive discussion, the award had to be split between Max Hohenschutz (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) and Ralm Ricarte (FAMU-FSU Tallahassee, USA). The honorarium of 1000,-€ was sponsored by the Karel Dušek Fund. Both candidates have an outstanding publication record, their presentation at the meeting were among the best of all presentations, and both were positively recognized in their quite active participation in the meeting.