On 7 and 8 March 2016, the first progress meeting was held in Aachen, hosted by RWTH. The goal of this meeting was twofold: keep everyone updated on the latest developments and get some insights from the partners. We also welcomed a few new members to the ROMEO team.

As outlined at the beginning of the meeting by Dr Frank Stenger, Scientific Coordinator, time is ticking very fast, with about 12% of our time already gone. The various presentations showed that this time has been productively used though. The results so far are indeed very exciting and certainly generated fruitful scientific conversations. There were lots of suggestions and brainstorming that will undoubtedly lead to improvements of the project and its outcomes.

The meeting definitely had a strong collaborative spirit, people asking what their model/prototype should provide/allow to be useful for the partners within this project. Partners offered to send samples, perform additional tests and support each other towards achieving our common goal.

At the end of this meeting, everyone was clear on what they needed to do and adjustments required.

ROMEO’s team during the first progress meeting

As far as leisure is concerned, the hosts, RWTH, kindly organised a tour of the beautiful (although very cold in March) Aachen city, rich of historic heritage and culinary tradition. We then had the opportunity to warm up in a German restaurant, drink beautiful German beers and wines.

German’s Easter delicacy