With the opening of the first smart³ branch office in Saarbruecken during the smart materials Summit 2024, there is now another point of contact for our innovation network.

Our annual conference, the smart materials Summit 2024, took place last year in Saarbruecken. The venue was deliberately chosen because the summit marked the opening of the new branch office at ZeMA – Zentrum für Mechatronik und Automatisierungstechnik gGmbH in Saarland. Holger Kunze and Sophie Nalbach officially opened the branch office with the unveiling of the smart³ mailbox, which the team in Saarbruecken can now use to communicate with anyone interested in their work.

With the new branch office, we are establishing a strong local presence and can be reached even faster from all parts of Germany. We are also pleased to further strengthen application-oriented project work and intensify contacts with industry from the ZeMA.

The working group in Saarbrücken, led by Paul Motzki and Sophie Nalbach, emerged from Prof. Stefan Seelecke's group. He brought smart materials to Saarland in 2011, where they are now an important part of ZeMA.

Since 2009, ZeMA has been working to transfer research and development results to industry as quickly as possible and convert them into real-world applications. Sophie Nalbach and Paul Motzki already showed exactly what this looks like in the last issue of Merlin Magazine: Looking at the bigger picture..

The team at the Saarbruecken branch

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Paul Motzki

Paul Motzki is a member of the smart³ board and has been conducting research in the field of smart material systems for over 10 years. He is Scientific Director/CEO at ZeMA and holds the SMiP professorship – Smart Material Systems for Innovative Production at Saarland University.

Dr.-Ing. Sophie Nalbach

Sophie Nalbach is head of the “Smart Material Systems” research area at ZeMA and managing director of the “SMiP – Smart Material Systems for Innovative Production” professorship at Saarland University. She has been head of the smart³ branch in Saarbruecken since November 2024.

Tammy Schwartz

Tammy Schwartz is an advisor to the management at ZeMA and is responsible in particular for public relations and event planning for smart³ in Saarland.