North Rhine-Westphalian Stem Cell Scientists met for the 9th time for the internal Meeting on April 11-12, 2014. The meeting is an integral part of the network's catalogue of activities and is receiving increasing popularity - almost 170 stem cell researchers took part in 2014. About 30 presentations from eleven scientific institutes were given during the one and a half days of the conference and the presented data (mostly unpublished) were eagerly discussed. The closed meeting is an important element for the identification and consolidation of scientific partnerships and serves as a starting point for joint research projects and proposals.