About 130 polymer national experts attended the commemorative colloquium of the KTP. The president of the University of Paderborn Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Risch welcomed the guests, who celebrated with Prof. Potente his 70th birthday and states: "You have smoothed the way for the next generation and for this I would like to express my gratitude in the name of the university."

Successful product innovations for enterprises of the polymer production and processings, of the polymer machine construction as well as the lacquer industry result from a profound knowledge of teamwork and interaction of product requirement. Material chemistry, raw material characteristics manufacturing techniques are of equal importance in this context. For this reason seven professors of the Paderborn departments of chemistry and engineering, more precisely polymer science, mechanical process engineering and environmental engineering work together in future times in central institutions.

At the end of April the meeting of the research group "AG W4.12" (Laser Beam Welding) of the Deutschen Verbandes für Schweißen und verwandte Verfahren e.V. took place at the KTP. The research group mainly focuses on guidelines of laser beam welding of polymers. This is an important interface of industry and research institutes.

In the context of the ENGEL Symposium 09 at the end of May the ENGEL HL-Award has been distributed. As the highlight of the evening in the Design-Center in Linz, Austria, enterprises, that use ENGEL injection moulding machines with with tie-bar-less clamping units and that apply the concept in an especially innovative and economic manner. Gold, silver and bronze went – in this order – to Braun GmbH in Walldurn/Germany, to Oechsler AG in Ansbach/Germany and to Härter-Mecutec GmbH & Co KG in Albstadt/Germany.

Only a machine that is designed optimally can reach optimal results. For this, the necessary software products such as REX (Computer-aided Extruder Design) and PSI (Paderborn Injection Moulding) are employed in the polymer machine industry successfully. The ideal case guarantees the reduction of the manufacturing costs at constantly decreasing quality of the product. For innovative products of extreme complex functions, which challenge the production, this process is permanently tested, developed and brought into perfection by the engineers at the KTP.

REX 10 and PSI 8 are the current versions of the simulation programmes concerning the procedural design of singular screw machines in polymer science. At the 26th of March the annual user meeting took place at the KTP. The users have been informed about the recent changes and new possibilities in the simulation programmes.

The faculty of engineering at the University of Paderborn informs with a new, 5-minute short film concisely about the diversified courses of study and the varied student life. The film can be watched in the internet under: http://mb.uni-paderborn.de/.

This is only one of many reasons to decide in favour of a carreer in polymer processing at the University of Paderborn in the field of mechanical engineering. The information event at the KTP offered students the possibility to inform themselves about the area of study "polymer processing". In his speech Prof. Dr.-Ing. Volker Schöppner (polymer processing) explained the course of studies, innovative polymer products and career prospects for polymer engineers.