Twelve students from eight countries qualified to participate in the course: Hungary, France, Brazil, Germany, India, Turkey, Portugal, and the Netherlands. These students study a wide variety of subjects on a daily basis, ranging from mechanical engineering and chemical engineering, through IT and industrial engineering, to aerospace engineering and computer science.

The course program combined theoretical lectures with practical computer classes. Participants listened to a series of presentations on topics such as metallic glasses and nanostructured alloys, smart materials, biocompatibility, circular economy and recycling, life cycle assessment (LCA) and eco-design, additive techniques, and thin film deposition methods. In the practical part, students worked with professional software: SimaPro (LCA analysis) and Ansys Granta (material selection).

The course ended with a team project - a materials engineering task involving the selection of optimal materials for specific applications, based on the knowledge acquired. The presentations prepared by the students were of a high standard and were very well received by the lecturers.

- We are delighted that the first edition of the ATHENS course at our faculty has attracted such interest and commitment from participants,” - says professor Joanna Zdunek, coordinator of the ATHENS course at WIM. - We wanted to create a program that would not only show the diversity of modern materials engineering, but also allow students from different countries to work together on real challenges. The high level of the projects confirmed that such initiatives have enormous potential and are worth developing.