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ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2011

  1. Introduction

This is the fifth annual report of the Polymer Society since the technical division title change under the federilisation approach within IOM3. The report format is based on the template required for the ITPB (Industry and Technology Policy Board).

Members currently expressing an interest in polymers in their member’s profile have remained pretty static with a sound base of members maintaining an interest in our PVC, Rubber in Engineering andPolymer Processing and Engineering technical communities.

The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), formed via Polymer Society Board membership as support for the work packages programme of the Materials KTN Polymer Sector Advisory Board completed their input to the Work Packages for this period.

The Polymer Society and RIEG microsites are now established within the top 10 of those of the technical communities

  1. Board membership

Succession planning by nomination of a Vice Chair is in discussion with board membership currently standing at 17. The following changes are to be noted.

Mr Tony Pringle resigned from his position at Cogent SSC but retained his position on the board by virtue of becoming President of SPE, UK and Ireland. We are endeavoring to re-establish a polymers link with Cogent.

Dr John Williams, Head of Materials for Energy and Industry, NNFCC, York was welcomed to the Board during the year.

Mr Spike Taylor continues as a corresponding member representing the Polymer Division of IOM3 Southern Africa Region.

Dr Matthew Thornton continues to give solid support despite his many other roles within IOM3 and the Materials KTN.

  1. Board meetings

Three Board meetings continued to be held during the year and these were as follows,showing varying participation.

  • 8th February at Bradford University - 57% attendance.
  • 9th June at 1CHT London - 38% attendance.
  • 20th October at 1CHT London - 69% attendance.

4.Opportunities for growth of Division Community or constraints

The Society continues to have objectives based on a Rolling 12 Months Programme using Key Performance Indicators based on members declaring an interest in Polymers, PVC, Rubber and/or Polymer Processing and Engineering (PPE) in their profile. Over the year these figures remained static.

  • In attempting to make direct contact with those members, two newsletters were emailed during the year with some positive feedback.

We also now have the demographics of these members (80% based in the UK) and can now formulate our ideas for developing an international base.

  • Society notional costs are also now being supplied and this shows that we are 14% of the cost of all the technical divisions. On first evaluation this (travel and meeting costs) seems on the high side and are being reviewed. Of course we are always endeavoring to evaluate the cost benefit that our members receive from our efforts.
  • Dr Matthew Thornton has taken over as Secretary General of IRCO which is an association of rubber societies around the world which plan the calendar for the main international rubber conferences. This is seen as an opportunity to give a higher profile to the Society and possibly develop Institute membership at an international level.

In addition to the technical programme, we continue to focus on maintaining and developing the microsite and targeting input into the MW editorial programme as ways of retaining and attracting members.

5. Technical programme

a) 2011 Events

- Despite a new competitor, PVC 2011 was a very successful event again exceeding target delegate numbers and budget, confirming its place as a major Institute conference. The survey of delegates gave very positive responses.

- The Rubber in Engineering Group (RIEG) continues to deliver on very successful afternoon technical discussion meetings (ATDM). One event, Elastomers in Defence, was run as a webinar in conjunction with the Materials KTNincollaboration with the Defence, Safety and Security Committee.

- PPE 11, the 13th in this biennial series of international conferences organised on a two year cycle by the Polymer Processing and Engineering Committee, was run again successfully at Bradford University in December. Themes includedResource Efficiency,

Healthcare Technologies, Polymer Micro & Nano Technology and Science to Commercialisation.

- A follow up conference by the Applied Polymer Science Group has not been organised yet.

b) Events planned for 2012 can be accessed via the website.

6. Foresight / Innovation and Growth

Nothing specific to report that has not been covered elsewhere.

7.Professional membership developments

New membershipstrategy has includes the new member welcome letter and newsletters.

Links to IoM3 Local Polymer Societies/Branches continue to be reasonable but there is no indication (with the exception of two/three) that they are asking for improvements in this area.

8.Institute Federalism

From a Polymer Society point of view the initial benefit of improved visibility/identity has been achieved but no further benefits have been noticed in relation to increased numbers of members indicating an interest in polymers etc on their profile.

9.National and international linkages with other Societies /Institutes

An agreement was reached in October on reciprocal membership between the IOM3 and SPE (Society of Plastics Engineers). The overall programme would be maintained for a period of 2 years with a review at the end of 12 months.

The details are as follows-

500 members of SPE who have full member status and of which at least 250 are located within the geographic areas of Europe, South Africa, India, the Middle East and South East Asia are provided with free of charge IOM3 membership at ‘e’ affiliate member status. This would enable access to all ‘e’ member benefits. IOM3 would take an action to progress the professional status of SPE members during the free membership year waiving any application fee but requesting a contribution to other licence fees appropriate to Chartered Engineer, Scientist or Environment status, or Incorporated Engineer and Engineering Technician. At the end of this first year, IOM3 would then charge SPE members at the appropriate subscription for the professional grade discounted appropriately for overseas members. This offer would not be applied to any existing SPE members who are already members of IOM3. At the end of the 12 month period any SPE member who had not transferred into a professional grade of membership could opt to:

Pay the subscription rate for continued access to e affiliate status or lapse the membership enabling a further SPE member to take up the offer in the second year.

By way of reciprocation, SPE would provide for 500 IOM3 professionally qualified (CEng, CSci, CEnv, IEng, Eng Tech members) and not existing SPE members, a free of charge membership to SPE for one year. At the end of this year the IOM3 members would elect to pay the appropriate rate for continuing SPE membership or lapse the SPE membership enabling a further professionally qualified IOM3 member to take up the offer for the second year. IOM3 professionally qualified members would by preference be drawn from the polymer, packaging, design or automotive communities and preference would be given to those IOM3 members outside the UK.

In addition it has been agreed that local events can be published in the SPE UK and Ireland Newsletter, to welcome SPE members to these events.

  1. Government interfaces

The strategic involvement with the TSB via the Mat KTN-Polymer Sector continues with the Scientific Advisory Committee, based on Polymer Society Board members, advising the Materials KTN Polymer Sector Advisory board in terms of work packages and SPARK Awards.

11.Publications

Microsite – Updating and populating the microsite has been maintained this year as the Chairman has now been trained in this area. However without the efforts of the Chairman and Board Secretary there would have been very few updates.

Whilst maintaining a top 5 position for the Society and all its committees, within the technical divisions league table based on home page views, this is a fall back from being in the top 3 due to the new boys on the block– Vitreous Enamellers and Wood Technology.

The Rubber In Engineering Group’s microsite continues to perform well at position 8- 10 in the overall technical communities’ league table.

Plastics Rubber & Composites: Macromolecular Engineering

Overall, good progress has been maintained with the journal thanks to active Editors, and continued excellent support from Emma Leighton of Maney. We have a good range of papers and special editions into the coming year – a better pipeline of papers than we previously had. We are concerned to generate more papers from Europe (including the UK) and North America.

We also aim to have a ‘database’ of our recent papers (Editorial Manager software does not provide this!) to allow the Editors to provide a quality assessment of each paper, and to star any which might be suitable for one of the IOM3 prizes.

  • Signpost papers from industry or academic experts in an area that is important are now being sought. The paper should give a short indication of where a subject is and an idea of where the expert feels it is heading?
  • The impact factor has increased from 0.275 to 0.374 and the five-year impact factor has increased to 0.486.
  • The Australian Research Council decided to remove the journal ranking exercise from their research evaluation process in the summer; the good ranking received by PRC: ME in the 2010 list in 2010 will still have a positive influence on Australian submissions.
  • PRC has published four theme issues in 2011; Latest Developments in Research on Composite Materials, Modelling of Elastomeric Materials and Products and Manufacturing and Design of Composites.
  • Several special issues are planned for 2012; including a selection of articles from the Deformation and Fracture of Composites (DFC-11), a selection of papers from ECCMR 2011 and a selection of commissioned papers on current research activities at Sheffield University.
  • Usage of PRC: ME by Institute members remains low (despite being included in their membership) and we require information about the journal and special issues to be included in communications to Polymer Society members.

Materials World – The profile of polymers etc has been good in MW articles but this is more due to the editorial team rather than our particular efforts in 2011.We are also contacted by the team to comment on relevant articles.

We are targeting the May 2012 edition for the generation of material.

  1. Awards/prize

Colwyn Medal

The Colwyn was awarded to Dr Richard Spontak, North Carolina State University, USA.

He is world renowned for work on block copolymers that behave as thermoplastic elastomers (TPE). This interest covers blending strategies to tailor the nanostructure and properties of the material. He has investigated midblock bridging, which affects the elasticity required of the TPE. This has implications for commercial TPEs, to improve uniaxial strain rates before failure occurs. Spontak applies this theoretical understanding to enhance knowledge of the thermodynamic stability of TPE nanostructures.

Arrangements are in hand for Dr Spontak to deliver the Rubber Foundation Lecture in 2012.

Some research was carried out as to the background of this award and is now available on the Polymer Society website.

Swinburne Lecture

On 24 March 2011Professor Ton Peijsfrom Queen Mary University of London delivered the Swinburne Lecture to an audience gathered at the International Conference on the Manufacturing of Advanced Composites (ICMAC) that was being held in Belfast, UK.

Some research was also carried out as to the background of this award and is now available on the Polymer Society website.

Alan Glanvill Award

This award is now nominated by PRC: ME editors and is for a paper published by the Institute of particular merit in the field of polymers.

This year it was awarded to A Sato, H Sakaguchi, H Ito and K Koyama, for their paper, 'Evaluation of replication properties on moulded surface by ultrasonic injection moulding system', Plastics, Rubber and Composites, Vol 39, No 7, pp315, September 2010. The experimental study provides a novel approach with an interpretation of the mechanism to improve surface replication.

James S Walker Award

For a project report by a student on the subject of polymers, the James S Walker was awarded to Lewis Tunnicliffe, Queen Mary, University of London, for his postgraduate report forming part of his Master of Research degree in Materials. The report, 'Investigations into the Microstructure of Silica-Filled Rubbers', ensured Tunnicliffe was the top student of his year.

  1. Other matters

- Educational Initiative with RIBA

IOM3 sponsorship of the RIBA Student Architecture Presidents Medal Awards in conjunction with the BPF (British Plastics Federation), Corus and Pilkington to highlight the benefits of using polymers, steel and glass for Building and Architectural Design continues.

However the student responses to the plant visits planned in 2011 was so poor that they were cancelled.

For 2012 the plan is to make direct contact with a School of Architecture who want to develop their knowledge of Materials by including it in the invitation.

- Student Design Innovation in Plastics (DIP) – Worshipful Company of Horners and IOM3

The focus of the award continues to be to encourage plastics design innovation and best practice in future product designers.

The theme of the 2011 competition was Design4Fun and the six finalists were selected from 76 entries submitted by 19 universities in the UK and Ireland. The award ceremony continues to be hosted by IOM3 at 1 CHT with Bayer Material Science being the headline sponsor.

The Polymer Society continues to participate in the organising committee andmaintenance of the new website whereby all entries aresubmitted electronically.

- Links with Cross Functional Groups- SDG

The Society maintains strong links with, and supports, the various discussions at the Sustainable Development Group; particularly the development of a Sustainability Policy for the IOM3.

Stuart Patrick 8th February 2012