Why this conference on ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING? Why just NOW? And why in DRESDEN? With these three thought-provoking questions, Prof. Dr. Christoph Leyens, Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS and Technische Universität Dresden opened what was for many of those present the first face-to-face conference since the beginning of the pandemic. The plenary lectures, highlight lectures, and the intensive technical exchange during the lecture sessions as well as at the social get-together in the evenings allowed to find answers quickly.

The future is additive. It is possible to manufacture materials without additive manufacturing, but not to additive manufacture without materials. The immense potential of materials science and materials engineering lies in being a source of innovation for application-oriented projects in business and industry "to solve real problems," says Dr. Sarah Fischer, Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP, emphatically in her blazing plea at the beginning of her highlight lecture at the opening of the conference. Because the demands of industry on research are high. The complexity of components and their functional integration and the cost-effective production of high-quality components in industrial standards require a profound understanding of materials.

Machine learning and computer-based data collection and manufacturing processes offer us as researchers, especially NOW, the opportunity to (get to) know materials in a new way and to expand the range of materials to replace existing restriction processes in development, manufacturing, and quality assurance with adequate standardizations. Due to the close scientific cooperation and networking with research-strong non-university partners, DRESDEN is one of the strongest scientific locations in Europe in additive manufacturing.

In the narrower sense and the broader sense, the symposium in Dresden again made tangible what has occupied the DGM as an association and professional society in the last two pandemic years. The participants said the "Additive Manufacturing" event was decidedly young and feminine. A higher proportion of women was visible among the speakers and the audience. First and third place in the poster session went to researchers M.Sc. Marie-Noemi Bold and Dipl.-Ing. Katharina Gabrysiak.

Of the approximately 260 registered guests, about two-thirds attended on-site and one-third attended online. There is no doubt that the face-to-face meeting was "like a release from the last two years", according to Dr. Jörg Kaspar, head of the Materials and Failure Analysis Group at Fraunhofer IWS Dresden. Dr. Anja Waske puts it in a nutshell: 

"How much this self-evident part of our profession has been missing for two years: this special creative mood that you only get into at a conference, the many new impulses that you can think through with others, reflect on your own work based on new findings, and let yourself be carried away by the enthusiasm of others."

Dear MatWerk community, let us take this fresh momentum into the following months of 2022. Let yourself be carried away to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in face-to-face events or online. In this respect, the DGM would also like to explicitly thank the conference chair, Prof. Dr. Leyens and the program committee. Thanks to your commitment, the "3rd Symposium on Materials and Additive Manufacturing" has become a great success, both on-site and digitally.