On the 21^st of August, the iimt welcomed members of the Swiss Cooperate Network Group for a one-day meeting to exchange insights about the topic “Change Leadership: how to move up the PMO maturity curve”. The lively discussion concluded that support from top management, and a long-term approach are the most important factors to improve this maturity. Finally, the members were highly pleased by the organisation which resulted in a successful day.

Mario Gstrein has held a highly acclaimed contribution titled "The Changing Decision Patterns of the Consumer in a Decentralized Smart Grid“ at the 11^th International Conference on the European Energy Market 2014 (EEM14), Krakow, Poland. The conference is supported among others by IEEE and PES. In the paper an essential decision-making pattern of consumers is defined on the basis of the potential of self-generated and self-stored electricity (PV without immediate feed-in).

The iimt is proud to announce that the 9th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES) will be hosted at the iimt - University of Fribourg, from the 8th till the 12th of September 2014. The main focus of the ARES conference is to highlight the various aspects of security, with special focus on the crucial linkage between availability, reliability and security.

Prof. Dr. Stephanie Teufel will present at ICSGCE2014 conference (4^th International Conference on Smart Grid and Clean Energy Technologies) in Sharjah, UAE, her position paper „The Crowd Energy Concept“. The conference is supported among others by China Renewable Energy Society (CRES), and China Energy Association (CEA). In this paper the effects of Fukushima and the associated new energy policy in Switzerland and Europe are presented.