The annual members' meeting of the European Laser Institute (ELI) took place on June 17, 2009 in Munich. During the course of this event, Dr. Stefan Kaierle, who has been the chairman of the ELI Executive Board since the foundation of the network, was re-elected to this position. The European Laser Institute ELI, headquartered in Aachen and founded in 2003 in Copenhagen, has the mission of pooling European laser know-how obtained from research, industry, and business. An important aspect of this effort is representing the interests of association members from 13 European countries in their respective political bodies. "ELI will contribute to strengthening Europe's leading position in the field of optical technologies by exerting targeted influence on European research policy," states Kaierle, a department head at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen.
Dr. Filip Motmans (VITO – Lasercentrum Vlaanderen) and Prof. Dr. Andreas Ostendorf (Chair of Laser application technology at the Ruhr University Bochum) were introduced as new members of the board. The re-elected members of the board are Dr. Paul Hilton (TWI, Cambridge, UK), Dr. Wolfgang Knapp (CLFA, Paris, France), Prof. Dr. José Luis Ocaña (Centro Láser U.P.M., Madrid, Spain) and Prof. Dr. Veli Kujanpää (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland).