As the year 2022 nears its end, we take a few moments to reflect on what the year has brought us.

Throughout the year we have had the pleasure of meeting people who have enriched our (research) lives: our 2 visiting guest researchers Josè Aznarte and Andrea Zanellati, our intern Lukas Menzel and our 2 new colleagues Stefan Hummel and Nina Mouhammad. Besides having guests, some team members were also guests themselves, for example Daniele Di Mitri who was a guest researcher in the USA. During the year the AR4STEAM project ended successfully and we started 2 new projects ML2MT and HyTea. We took part in around 20 events over the year, published 8 conference papers, 13 journal papers and 2 book chapters. We took part in 3 interviews and 1 podcast and produced 2 video. As a result of our diligence for our past work our team members were awarded with 7 different awards in 2022.

As we look back over the year, we look back with pride, but especially with thankfulness. Despite the many challenges with the ongoing pandemic and the setbacks of the cyber attack on our institute, we managed to not lose our optimism, our level of engagement and excitement for our work. If one looks at all of the achievements we’ve made over the past year, we can happily say that our optimism, engagement and excitement has actually grown over the past year. And for this we are very thankful.

But even more we are especially thankful for the important people in our lives: our family, friends and colleagues that have helped us make all of these achievements possible. Without your understanding, your patience and your help we would have never made it this far.

To you we raise our glasses and say thank you with all of our hearts! We wish you all peaceful, healthy and happy holidays and a great start in the New Year 2023!