Smart Materials: Efficiency, Complexity and Design

Smart Materials: Efficiency, Complexity and Design

Wednesday 21st October

Scarman House, Warwick Conferences

 

A one-day meeting designed to bring together leaders in the UK polymer and synthetic chemistry communities to identify the key challenges, collaborative opportunities and funding consortia to meet the challenges of Smart Materials research.

The UK is a global leader in polymer synthesis, and academic activity in the area continues to deliver palpable economic advantage to society. Building on the advances delivered in the use of polymers in smart, functional materials will require a step-change in the synthetic chemistry which underpins the subject; only by ensuring access to new generations of functionalized high-value monomers and delivering improved methods for polymerisation will advances continue. The EPSRC Grand Challenge Dial-a-Molecule brings together in this event leaders of the UK polymer and synthetic chemistry communities to identify the key challenges, collaborative opportunities and funding consortia to meet the challenges of Smart Materials research.

The meeting will have three themes:

  • Improved efficiency
  • Accessing complexity
  • Tailoring function

The meeting will consist of short presentations followed by facilitated round table discussions which will be focussed on identifying technology gaps and creating new collaborative frameworks.

Meeting Report: download here

Program:

10:00 Registration and Coffee (Ground Floor Lounge)
Session One: Meeting Room 8 (First Floor)
10:30 Welcome and Housekeeping
10:40 Presentations:
  • Prof. Cameron Alexander, University of Nottingham
  • Dr Francisco Fernandez-Trillo, University of Birmingham
  • Dr Matthew I. Gibson, University of Warwick
  • Dr Helen Willcock, Loughborough University
  • Dr Rachael Rowlands-Jones, Knowledge Transfer Network
12:20 Buffet Lunch (Ground Floor Restaurant)
Session Two: Meeting Room 8 (First Floor)
13:20 Breakout Round-Table Discussions
16:30 Mixer (Ground Floor Lounge)

Organising committee: Prof Joe Sweeney & Prof Rachel O’Reilly