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Vol.
25 No. 3
May - June 2003
The
Mission and Challenges of Polymer Science and Technology
by
R. F. T. Stepto
The
inaugural IUPAC Strategic Polymer Conference (PC2002)
took place 25 December 2002 in Kyoto, Japan, as part
of the 50-year celebration of The Society of Polymer Science,
Japan. It was held under the auspices of the Science Council
of Japan and the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, and was
organized by the Science Council of Japan and The Society
of Polymer Science, Japan, with the assistance of the Macromolecular
Division of IUPAC. The chairman of the organising committee
was professor Seiichi Nakahama and the vice chairman was professor
Kazuyuki Horie.
The
conference was attended by 786 active participants of which
156 were students and 112 came from abroad. Notably, the participants
came from 29 countries, demonstrating the world-wide appeal
of the meeting.
The
meeting was the brainchild of Professor Akihiro Abe of the
Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, an IUPAC Fellow and an active
member of the Macromolecular Division of IUPAC. It was a new
venture, being the first strategic meeting assessing the current
fields of activity in polymer science and technology and future
directions.
The
conference purposely tackled many topics over its three days
and therefore had a very concentrated timetable. In addition
to the plenary lectures, there were 41 invited lectures, 19
session lectures, and 12 contributed oral presentations. The
poster sessions contained 577 posters. The scientific program
finished with a panel discussion assessing the messages and
implications of the conference for polymer science.
The
plenary lectures were given by Nobel Laureate Hideki Shirakawa
(Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet Office,
Japan) on the Discovery of Conducting PolymersFortuity
and Inevitability; Dennis A. Torchia (National Institutes
of Health, Bethesda, USA) on Molecular Structure and Dynamics
of Proteins in Solutions: Insights Derived from High-Resolution
NMR Approaches; Jean-Pierre Sauvage (Université Louis
Pasteur, Stasbourg, France) on Rotaxanes and Catenanes as
Prototypes of Molecular Machines and Motors; and Masao Doi
(Nagoya University, Japan) on Challenges in Polymer Physics.
The
six broad areas of the conference were Polymer Concepts in
Chemistry, Physics, and Biology; Frontiers of Polymer Science;
Advanced and Emerging Polymer Technologies; State of the Art
in Biopolymers; Polymers and the Environment-Coexistence and
Interaction; and Commodity Polymers and the World Economy.
Both lectures and posters amply illustrated the numerous developments
and increasing frontiers of polymer science. They showed how
broad the subject had become since its foundation, 80 or so
years ago and how the emphasis of polymer science had moved
away from the macromolecule towards new materials, systems,
and applications. However, the contributions also showed that
molecular understanding and control are essential for understanding,
predicting, and controlling properties and performance. Polymer
science was seen to be a science interacting closely with
many physical, chemical, and biological sciences and technologies,
leading to new processes and materials, associated, for example,
with information technology, high-performance composites,
environmentally friendly, renewable-resource materials, and
biological and medical applications.
Overall,
the conference demonstrated that polymer science and technology
cover very broad and continually expanding subject areas.
They are at the core of many future scientific and technological
developments. In spite of the growth and continuing diversity,
the conference and the panel discussion showed that polymer
scientists and technologists are still able to communicate
and interact as a community. In this respect, the conference
and discussion were extremely useful for defining common platforms
and directions for the future. Further, the Macromolecular
Division of IUPAC will be leading developments through its
active fostering and integration of polymer activities worldwide
and its newly launched strategic study of the needs of world
polymer science.
The
opening plenary lectures, together with a summary of the closing
panel discussion are being prepared for publication in Pure
and Applied Chemistry and papers from the invited lectures
will be published in Macromolecular Symposia. The next IUPAC
strategic meeting on the Mission and Challenges of Polymer
Science will be held in 2005 in New York, under the chairmanship
of Professor Kalle Levon of the Polytechnic University of
New York.
R.
F. T. Stepto <[email protected]>
is from the Polymer Science and Technology Group of the University
of Manchester and UMIST, and is currently president of the
IUPAC Macromolecular Division.
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last modified 29 April 2003.
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Applied Chemistry.
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