One of the side-effects of being a polymer scientist, is that I have always been able to claim allegiance to the chemistry or materials side according to my mood. On Thursday, I was wearing my chemistry hat and attending the SusChem European Technology Platform Stakeholder Event in Brussels. As I made my way to the coffee and croissants in the morning, I met Derek Allen, who was there in his role as chairman of the Advanced Engineering Materials and Technologies Technology Platform (EuMAT). We had time to compare Materials UK notes and discuss the various UK-Europe links that are currently developing over the breakfast!!

It has been interesting to watch the development of chemistry, and the other primary sciences, over the last 10 or so years. They have mostly evolved into complex mixtures of their origins and both other sciences and applications technologies. Materials science has always occupied an odd position. Although there is plenty of chemistry and physics needed to understand the behaviours of materials, it is their application that sets the context of their existence and the complexities of processing that ground the subject in the real world. Chemistry has been adapting to this new, multidisciplinary world as well as any other “pure” science. It has made massive strides in understanding the downstream use of its outputs, it has recognised and embraced the need for greater sustainability (its reputation from earlier days used to be more as the problem rather than the solution) and it has built new collaborative relationships with the other sciences.

All this is evident in the Strategic Research Agenda and Implementation Action Plan developed under SusChem. The 3 main strands are industrial biotechnology (which has to be jointly implemented with biologists and probably engineers), materials technology (which has to be jointly implemented with materials scientists and physicists) and reaction and process design (which has to be jointly implemented with engineers). There is very little “pure” chemistry in the high level programmes. Delve into the details and you find a different story. Although many of the 70 or so priorities listed in the rather long list in the IAP are multidisciplinary, there are also some neat challenges for chemists who don’t like socialising!!

This conflict between the need to focus to achieve results and stay reasonably general to maximise the potential overlaps shows up in the list of the 31 technology platforms that have been developed in preparation for Framework 7. The list contains some underpinning technologies, some intermediate technologies and some market-based areas. I hope someone in Brussels has a grip on the overlaps and differences. Meanwhile, we in Materials UK and the Materials KTN have to pay attention to a very noisy European arena.

David