Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are lightly crosslinked polymer networks that show promise in multiple future-oriented industries like soft robotics, 1-3 electronics and the medical industry because they exhibit unique reversible mechanical, optical, electrical and thermal properties. One particularly outstanding feature is their ability to react to external stimuli, allowing modulation of mentioned properties on demand. These stimuli can be electricity, light, mechanical stress or temperature changes triggering reversible shape deformation (actuation) up to 400% or color/opacity changes. LCEs are typically produced by pre-polymerizing an LC monomer and a chain extender, followed by alignment through stretching, rubbed surfaces, 3D printing , or electrical or magnetic field exposure. The mesogenic groups may be located in the polymer backbone (main-chain LCE) or as a pendant group (side-chain LCE). After the alignment, a crosslinking step is employed, leading to a loosely crosslinked, elastomeric network with a well-defined structure. Thus, functional LCE materials are typically soft, elastic materials. Liquid crystalline networks (LCN), or liquid crystalline thermosets, are highly crosslinked polymer networks containing mesogenic groups. Their crosslinking densities, and thus their properties, are similar to conventional thermosets, which may be obtained by polymerizing e.g., (meth)acrylate monomers with a high fraction of crosslinker. By aligning the mesogens in LCNs before polymerization, directional anisotropy in mechanical properties, in particular high strength in the direction of the alignment, can be achieved. However, these highly crosslinked materials are usually frozen in their glassy state exhibiting low crystallinity and actuation strains below 5%. Therefore, they are not suitable for use as smart materials in analogy to LCEs.