The Young Scientist Retreat 2023 has once again offered the Young Scientists of the HEiKA Graduate School on Functional Materials the opportunity to connect, exchange ideas and discuss their research results. At this year’s team building event, they had to work closely together to successfully build suspension bridges. New impulses for research, collaboration and general improvements of the Cluster resulted from different workshops. And although many good posters were presented, in the end Tobias Abele, Magdalena Fladung and Clara Vazquez-Martel received the award from the postdoctoral researchers.