CenTiRe Fall IAB Conference a Success

The Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe) 2022 Fall IAB conference was held last week, hosted by our University of Akron academic partner at the Fairlawn Hilton. It was our first live fall conference in over 3 years and, by all accounts, was a resounding success.  Over 30 industry members participated, representing 13 of our member companies, as well as over 60 faculty and student researchers. 

After welcome comments and introductions, the first day started with update reviews from the 10 current projects.  Next, the IAB reviewed 25 short research proposal presentations from our UA and VT faculty partners, which were their responses to our recently published Request for Proposals solicitation. Everyone then participated in the afternoon poster session, where industry and academic members were able to discuss both current projects and new research proposals via face-to-face interactions.  The day concluded with a dinner event, where the IAB chair awarded best student presentation awards, as judged by the IAB members.

Day two consisted of three IAB closed door sessions where center business was reviewed and discussed. Valuable IAB input regarding improving our center’s operations was gathered and action items were established for our leadership team to pursue. The afternoon open session centered on the IAB giving feedback to the current project researchers, and then each PI gave their response. The conference then concluded with the final door session. The UA faculty then conducted an optional tour of their laboratory facilities for several of our industry members. 

Both the industry and academic team members agreed that the live conference format and the face-to-face interactions were very valuable in pursuing and achieving our center’s research goals. Thus, we are planning to conduct future CenTiRe conferences as live, in-person events. Many thanks to all participants for making this conference a great success!