Materials research at the center (in the US)
The particularities of materials research US-style may be summarized for our purposes as "materials generic", "non-linear", and "large-scale & diverse". I will describe each in turn:
Materials generic
The materials generic approach has developed in curricula integrating the different classes of materials. When the Inter-Disciplinary Laboratories (IDLs) were set up at universities in the early 1960s, they had to contend with the realities of heavily-drawn disciplinary boundaries. Metallurgists had a specific set of theoretical and experimental tools differing markedly from those of, say, polymer chemists. Communication across these boundaries were difficult and the creation of IDLs did not by themselves lead members of each discipline to search for commonalities. But very gradually, an integrated approach emerged based on the perspective that certain structures, for instance at the atomic level, led to certain properties (mechanical, optical, electrical, magnetic) regardless of the type of material in question. A glance at the development of textbooks and curricula over the last 40 years confirms such a development. Early on, materials were taught sequentially by metallurgists, ceramists, solid-state physicists and polymer chemists, but gradually undergraduate students were taught basics of structure property relations - and often in newly founded departments, typically called Materials Science & Engineering. This development is still continuing: for instance at MIT, this materials generic perspective guides the education of students in their first two years, but in years 3 and 4 classes are structures by the specific materials categories: either metals or semiconductors and so on. There are currently plans at MIT to change this so that the materials generic approach is followed during all four years of undergraduate life.
Non-linear
| Science policy analysts in particular talk about the linear approach to the relationship of science and technology, viz. that scientific knowledge is derived in isolation and subsequently applied in the real world as technology. There is now probably universal agreement that the development is in fact non-linear, that is to say that many developments go from the so-called applied to the so-called pure. To my mind, the most obvious is in instrumentation. Much scientific apparatus is developed for the marketplace and yet it also has a huge impact on research that is putatively pure. But for our purposes, the main point is that a linear perspective used to prevail 40 years ago, whether this was correct or no. (I remember thinking myself as an undergraduate in the 80s that academic scientists were justified in asking for government funding for pure research.) I contend that the field of materials research has been one of the most important avenues for undermining the linear perspective. It is no coincidence that many departments are called Materials Science and Engineering; and the term "materials research" also eschews terms that may be associated with either pure or applied. Materials researchers explicitly regard themselves as conducting research that is simultaneously pure and applied, thus rendering those two terms non-sensical. The illustration on the right hand side, for example, characterizes materials research as attending equally to the five topics, symbolized by apexes of a pentahedron, including the "pure" topic of structure and the "applied" aspect of end-user needs. |
|
Large-scale & diverse:
Several materials researchers, such as Gordon Pike, the editor-in chief of the Journal of Materials Research, have suggested that the establishment of interdisciplinary laboratories was in effect a transplantation of the corporate research culture, such as that found at Bell Labs, into the academic setting. At Bell Labs, the concern was to create useful materials, e.g. for computer chips containing both ceramics and semiconductors. in this perspective the artificial academic disciplinary boundaries were encrustations constituting an obstacle. This perspective also prevailed at the Pentagon, and of course the term "military/industrial complex" has been described to characterize much in post-World War II research. Indeed, the IDLs were funded by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), and Bell Labs' William O. Baker was intimately involved in the early committee work. A graduate of Materials Science & Engineering can apply for jobs in the industrial or military sectors where a materials generic approach is desired. For example, aerospace technology requires advanced materials of all kinds. I mention this particularly because when we look to materials research in, say, Greece, it is important to remember that there is no aerospace industry and that the spectrum of industrial and military jobs available for a graduate in Greece is entirely different.
- Materials research in peripheral Europe - main page
- Some characteristics of US materials research
- EU policy on research, technology and development (with a view to materials research in peripheral Europe)
- Materials research in Spain
- Materials research in Portugal
- Materials research in Greece
- Materials research in Denmark
This page was written and last updated on 20 August 2002 by Arne Hessenbruch.
