The annual general meeting took place on 1 March. We are particularly pleased that we were privileged to welcome four new members at the meeting. A warm welcome to Prof. Carmen Gräßle from the Institute for Partial Differential Equations, Prof. Ralf Jänicke from the Institute for Applied Mechanics, Prof. Henning Wessels from the Institute for Computational Modelling in Civil Engineering and Prof. Roland Wüchner from the Institute of Structural Analysis.