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."

Under Potente's directorship 60 dissertations have been written at the department in the last 25 years and four of his former students have become polymer professors. During his time at the KTP Potente raised 25 million euro of third-party funds. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Detmar Zimmer, dean of the faculty for mechanical engineering appreciates the work of Potente, who retired in 2004. “Up to the handing over in 2008 to his successors Prof. Elmar Moritzer and Prof. Volker Schöppner Prof. Potente has always been present and active.” Zimmer remembers that Potente received, besides the enumerable international awards, the "IGEL" an award created by the Paderborn engineer students for excellent teaching in lectures.During the commemorative colloquium, in which companions and students gave lectures on polymer topics, the highlight of the program were the WAK awards. All in all, six awards from a jury of the scientific study group for polymer technique (WAK), were presented. The awardees were: Benjamin Rudin (M.Sc.), Dr.-Ing. Holger Ruckdäschel, Dip.-Ing. Anna Funk, Dr.-Ing. Florian Klunker, Dipl.-Ing. Michael Geier and Dr.-Ing. Reinhard Schiffers. For their diploma theses the awardees received 4000 euro each, for the dissertations 5000 euro each. The money came from the following enterprises: Brose Fahrzeuge from Coburg, the Oechsler AG from Ansbach and the Ensinger GmbH from Nufringen.