Future Perspectives in European Materials Research

SMART is a Specific Support Action funded by the European Commission within the 6th Framework Programme in Priority 3 “Nanotechnology and Nanosciences, knowledge based multifunctional materials, new production processes and devices”. The objective of the SMART project is to give the scientific community and the European Commission important information about specific strengths and weaknesses in European materials technology as well as to draw a picture of materials research in the future. The SMART process was divided into several stages. The first stage involved data screening on the forecast side and identification of relevant studies on the foresight side. In the second stage interviewing of experts and analysis of studies led to further progress. Materials relevant foresight scenarios were used to identify the thematic focus areas for the workshops. In the third and final stage roadmapping exercises were carried out which combined the forecast and foresight results from three thematic workshops. Bibliometric studies prove that Europe’s position is competitive in all areas of materials science. By analysing the number of publications in different materials research areas per year it was found that Germany, Italy, France and United Kingdom have a high output of scientific materials science publications in all research areas. Poland and Spain have a significant publication number per year in the field of macroscale materials. Spain has also a high output in bio-, smart- and nanomaterials publications. Sweden has a significant activity in modelling. Excellence in materials research was measured through the impact of materials research publications and by surveys taken from materials experts. For example high impact numbers were measured for publications from Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. [...