4TU.HTM News

In the Beatrix building of Jaarbeurs Utrecht the High-Tech Materials community of the - then - three Dutch universities of technology (3TU until May 2016) was represented by about 50 colleagues in materials science and engineering. Jilt Sietsma, Scientific Director of 4TU.HTM, welcomed them all presenting (Pdf file, 1MB) the goals and ambitions of the research centre. Biggest aim of 4TU.HTM is to collaborate! A survey of key words characterising the type of work scientists within 4TU.HTM do, shows that they all work on materials. Zooming in it reveals that there are a lot of categories in which the researchers from the three TU's find each other. This provides a lot of opportunities for the activities of 4TU.HTM. A key note lecture - Mechanisms of toughening of soft polymeric materials: some recent advances - was held by dr. Costantino Creton. He is a CNRS Research Director within the Soft Matter Science and Engineering Labatory of the ESPCI ParisTech. He also is a scientific chairman of the Performance Polymers technology area of the Dutch Polymer Institute. Moreover, he will be involved within the 4TU.HTM research programme project proposed by dr. Kees Storm and dr. Wouter Ellenbroek, performing the role of international expert.

The 4TU Research Centre High-Tech Materials, a concerted effort by Delft and Eindhoven Universities of Technology, the University of Twente and Wageningen University, provides an impulse to the design of new materials. With the selection of six research proposals it will stimulate the development of new knowledge on materials in high-quality academic research. Just like other 4TU Research Centres, 4TU.HTM received funding from the 4TU Federation to launch a new research programme*: “New Horizons in designer materials”. In July 2015, six research projects have been selected to act as nuclei for new academic research groups in the Netherlands for the design and development of future materials. The projects are scientifically fundamental and highly innovative. For each project an excellent postdoctoral researcher with the ambition and the potential for a tenured academic career in the Netherlands will be recruited. Each of these post-docs will be working in close collaboration with internationally renowned experts in the field of materials science.