The Vienna University of Technology hosted this year's general meeting. More than 40 members gathered in the Arnold-Schmid-Raum and were welcomed by the Chairman Klaus Reichmann and the Dean of the Faculty of Technical Chemistry Prof. Dr. Marko Mihovilovič. The scientific part of the event began with a guest lecture by Prof. Yiquan Wu from Alfred University on new developments in transparent ceramics for optical applications. Afterwards, the participants of the student speech competition presented their research work. Once again this year, these presentations demonstrated the diversity of our members' scientific activities.

In the general meeting itself, information was provided on the activities of the members. Of particular note was the presentation of the American Ceramic Society's Best Paper Award 2024 to a group of members of the Chair of Structural and Functional Ceramics at the University of Leoben and partners from LITHOZ for the publication “3D-printed alumina-based ceramics with spatially resolved porosity” with the authors Serkan Nohut, Josef Schlacher, Irina Kraleva, Martin Schwentenwein and Raul Bermejo.

Furthermore, Maria Szinovatz, representing the new company member CERAMICO Burgenland GmbH, presented the history and mission of this unique educational institution for ceramists in Austria. Abdullah Jabr, our representative in the Young Ceramists Network (YCN), also spoke about the activities and funding opportunities in this network, especially for our student members.

As always, the event concluded with the award ceremony for the winners of the student speech competition. All applicants achieved a very high score and only small differences decided the ranking. First prize went to Katharina Rauchenwald from the Vienna University of Technology, who impressed the jury with her presentation on “Freeze-casting of polysiloxane-derived ceramics for CO₂ utilization”. The runner-up was Anna Margarethe Paulik from Graz University of Technology with a presentation on “Solid-state formation reactions of (Ba,Ca)(Zr,Ti)O₃ piezoceramics”. Tobias Prötsch from the University of Leoben took third place with his presentation “Towards strong and tough alumina-based ceramics through rapid sintering”.

We would like to congratulate the prizewinners. Katharina Rauchenwald will therefore represent our company at the Student Speech Contest of the European Ceramic Society at the ECerS 2025 conference in Dresden. We wish her every success in this competition.

Winners of the student speech contest: Katharina Rauchenwald, Anna Margarethe Paulik andTobias Prötsch (l. to r.)