The basis of the second generation “Adhesives and Sealants” had been established in the fifties of the last century with all new innovative and synthetic raw materials. This stage of development laid the foundations for interesting innovations within the field of joining techniques - last but not least because of the possibility of joining various materials. With new adhesive and sealant families many interesting, interdisciplinary application areas could be opened up and economic manufacturing systems were developed. Nevertheless, the new products caused several problems – especially the implementation into a production process.

After failures and drawbacks it was obvious that a cooperation between the adhesive manufacturer and the application manufacturer is essential to fulfill the requirements of the customers. These deficiencies had been recognized early by the chemist Rudolf Hinterwaldner, Munich, and his team. Therefore, he established the “International Symposiums on Bonding Technology” at the institute for woodworking and plastics “Lehrinstitut für Holzwirtschaft und Kunststofftechnik e.V.” in Rosenheim in 1979/80. This first independent European forum had the main objective to edit actual topics of different industrial sectors within periodic intervals and maintain an information exchange.

20 symposiums within 20 years document the high significance of this exchange of experience.