Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering

Filip Du Prez

doi:10.1515/ci-2018-0120

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Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering

Filip Du Prez
Filip Du Prez <filip.duprez@ugent.be> was co-chair with Richard Hoogenboom of the Program Committee.

Published/Copyright: February 5, 2018

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From the journal Chemistry International Volume 40 Issue 1

Without any doubt, polymer materials became the most important materials world-wide during the 20th century. Over the last decade, the focus is shifting to molecularly engineered polymers for their application as materials with high added value in areas such as electronics, the biomedical sector, and energy. In the meantime, these materials are not only picked up in an academic context, but applied more and more to our daily lives by chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

In this context, a series of Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering (APME) conferences conferences launched a long time ago (and recurring every two years) has seen an increasing interest, especially in the last two editions held in Japan and the UK, which included more than 400 participants. For this reason, these APME meetings have been recognized as some of the most prestigious meetings in the broad field of polymer science.

The focus of the 12th International Symposium APME, this time organized at Ghent University (Belgium) 21-25 May 2017 by Prof. Du Prez (chair) and Prof. Hoogenboom (co-chair), is on the broad topic of macromolecular engineering for the design of advanced polymeric structures, in connection to their characterisation and recent applications. In total, close to 500 people from 39 countries participated to this event.

During APME2017, 4 plenary lectures, 72 invited lectures, 60 oral communications, and 277 posters were presented during three days, centering on the following 10 themes, many of them around topics of high societal and economical impact:

APME2017 in Ghent, Belgium, 21-25 May 2017

Recent Advances in Macromolecular Synthesis
Complex Macromolecular Structures
Dynamic and Supramolecular Polymers
Stimuli-responsive and Functional Polymer Architectures
Self-healing and Reprocessable Polymer Systems
Polymers at Surfaces and Interfaces
New Industrial Developments for Polymeric Materials
Polymers meet Biology/Biochemistry
Polymers from Renewable Resources
Polymers for Energy Applications

APME 2017 offered an interdisciplinary platform for scientists with an interest in polymer science. While the oral presentations were mainly given by academic speakers (about 90 %), a small number of industrial researchers was invited on the first afternoon of the conference to underline the importance of state-of-the-art applications for newly designed polymer structures. When filling in the scientific program, emphasis was given to current trends and future developments in many fields of polymer synthesis, in which advanced polymeric structures play a key role.

In general, the feedback was extremely positive: 87 % of the participants rated the event as good to excellent compared to other similar events they have attended, 90 % rated the relevance of the topics as good to excellent, and 94 % rated the scientific content as good to excellent. Already, 61 % are considering attending the event in 2019, while 32 % are not yet sure.

We heard numerous times that APME2017 was “without any doubt the best international polymer meeting of this year”. This was exemplified by the continuous strong interactions during the conference, including during the poster sessions. In summary, APME2017 was a quite successful meeting, highly appreciated by the participants. The FWO is explicitly acknowledged for financial report.

The next APME meeting will take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 15-18 April 2019.

About the author

Filip Du Prez

Filip Du Prez <filip.duprez@ugent.be> was co-chair with Richard Hoogenboom of the Program Committee.

Published Online: 2018-2-5

Published in Print: 2018-1-1

©2018 IUPAC & De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For more information, please visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ci-2018-0120