The ITMA Future Materials Awards will be held November 26, 2014 in Germany. The awards recognize innovation in the textile industry. Future Materials Award is open to all the end-use sectors for technical textiles as well as materials experts, product developers and designers.

The awards will celebrate winners in 21 categories including best innovation in sportswear, protective, industrial and medical textiles. Awards will also be given for groundbreaking partnership development, best start-up company, and lifetime achievement.

The ceremony will be held in partnership with the Aachen-Dresden International Textiles Conference. This will provide an unparalleled platform to share information, establish partnerships and facilitate networking for companies, suppliers, associations and academics across the entire technical textiles value chain. Delegates to the conference on November 27 and 28 can expect to hear insightful presentations on the latest advances in the fields of textile chemistry, finishing and functionalisation, and textile machinery, manufacturing and composites. Special attention will be given to the topics of composites, membranes and protective textiles.

Future Materials Awards is sponsored by Cordura and Archroma. Since 1960, the technical textiles market has grown five times faster than traditional textiles and is expected to hit 175 billion dollars by 2020. The nonwovens and composite markets are also set to increase significantly. Today, technical textiles use 25 million tonne of fibers, accounting for a third of global production.

www.futurematerialsawards.com/