At the end of each year I like to look back at all of the events that made news headlines over the previous 12 months. I thought it might be fun to do the same with the coatings industry, so here is a brief review of what happened this year.

This is our annual Emerging Technologies issue, in which we feature news items, articles and profiles of some of our industry’s newest and most innovative research.

Globalization and short product life cycles are increasing the pressure on companies to open up their innovation processes. However, currently German industrial managers rate the use of external knowledge as least relevant for successful innovation.

This article highlights pertinent current and future issues shaping the coatings industry.

A workshop titled “Uncertainty in the Coatings Industry” will be held January 27, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency Houston in Houston, TX.

This year’s show and congress showed that sustainability is a major innovation driver for the coatings industry.

Ohio State University researchers studied butterfly wings and rice leaves to find out more about their self-cleaning surfaces.

It may not be a household name even among farm families, but the oilseed camelina is showing good potential as an environmentally friendly commercial biofuel feedstock, particularly for biodiesel and jet fuel.

The AkzoNobel Laboratory of Corrosion Protection at The University of Manchester is the result of a five-year landmark strategic partnership between the largest global coatings company and one of the UK’s top universities.