I met with the Materials and Structures National Advisory Committee last Monday at 1 Carlton Terrace. This is an interesting group. If you “Google” the name or the acronym, you will discover that they have been meeting for almost a decade and have produced some interesting papers on aspects of the use of materials. However, despite their obvious ownership by their community, they (along with others, I suspect) are confused by the current landscape. I gave the standard presentation on Materials UK and they asked lots of questions about the relationship between Materials UK, the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network, the Defence and Aerospace Knowledge Transfer Network and the overall goals of the Technology Strategy Board.

I stayed to hear a series of presentations about the environment and projects, learning about the complexity of European funding, the new way the Ministry of Defence is accessing basic research through a consortium of universities and companies and a (quite the best) techno-commercial analysis of the materials needed for the next generation of civil aircraft. I left with a feeling that we, along with many of the newly formed organisations ought to look carefully at this sort of group and realise that their longevity is the best measure of relevance to the community.

David