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Director's Report 2007

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Anyone who has been involved with the UK government's mechanisms that are set up to enhance connectivity of industry to the science-base will know about the developments that have dominated the Department of Trade and Industry, and continue to do so as I write in the summer of 2007. I have heard many handwringing speeches urging greater collaboration, but when I look at the creative activities of the IRC and its key partner organisations in our own sector, I see already taking place the real business of "Knowledge Transfer" that constitutes the vision behind all the talking. Come, for example, to the annual "UK Polymer Showcase", now run in collaboration with the DTI's "Materials Knowledge Transfer Network" and Yorkshire Forward, and experience the vibrancy of the new science and the immediacy of its potential for all sorts of industry. The 2006 Showcase contained many highlights for me: certainly the afternoon examining "managing innovation" from different viewpoints was one. This year's meeting will be our first in London as guests of the London College of Fashion - naturally the subject of art, design and polymer science will appear, but as always the high points will be the chance to meet new people. I am delighted to report that the IRC has also been invited to have permanent membership of the board of the DTI's new "Polymer Innovation Network", and that the IRC board has appointed Dr Barry Maunders, formerly of BP Chemicals, to act for the IRC in developing our profile with the DTI and EU (see page 60 of the report).

The way in which IRC activities constitute a creative "chain" of realisation is illustrated by a new partnership with Faraday Packaging that began at last year's Showcase meeting. It proved very easy to match the interests of a consortium of companies each of whom wanted to understand more about the molecular aspects of processing the materials they require with existing academics and industrialists within the Polymer IRC Club. The first result was an oversubscribed focus workshop held this spring in York, followed by a mutually-crafted proposal from a subset of Faraday Packaging, the IRC Club and academic teams in Bradford and Leeds.

Another example, now at the next stage and running at full speed, is the DTI Technology project on soft nanotechnology for encapsulation, run by Unilever and ICI with Sheffield as the major academic partner together with modelling from Leeds. Read later on about this exciting project, which illustrates perfectly how collaboration of this kind replaces the old "either/or" approach to fundamental science and its application with a refreshing "both/and"!

The Durham team have been active in organising what we hope will be the first of many IRC contributions to the various programmes of the EU Seventh Framework for research and technology. Several IRC Club members and research groups are participating in a large project on polymeric nanocomposites co-ordinated by the University of Lyons that has already succeeded in its outline stage. Our first Marie Curie Initial Training Network, on molecular rheology and co-ordinated from Leeds, has also succeeded at the outline stage; we will know by the end of the year if they are to receive full funding. Either way, the IRC is an ideal route to EU funding. We are additionally exploring ways of using our academic contacts within Europe to find research fellows interested in spending time on industrial fellowships with IRC Club partners.

The international collaborations available within the IRC are growing all the time (see special report on page 50). This is just one aspect of a core principle within the IRC; if anyone approaches us with a scientific or technical need, we will find the best answer to it, wherever in the world that might be!

So much for "what the IRC can do for you"! There is of course the converse - but that's easy really. The IRC works well when people know about it, use it, suggest workshops, and update their research information at the IRC office. Without communication it just ceases to exist. So "what you can do for the IRC" is no more than an extension of "what you can do for yourself" in the end - but please take some time to make sure that anyone in your organisation who might find IRC activities and networking helpful knows about it. And changing the things we do is easy - just contact the member of the IRC Board you know best (see information on page 62 of the report) or me directly.

Enjoy the review!

Tom McLeish

For more information about Polymer IRC activities over the last twelve months, see our Annual Review, linked below:

2007 Annual Review (PDF 1.5MB)

2006 Annual Review (PDF 451kB)