This award supports the participation of approximately ten young U.S. polymer scientists in a joint workshop with potential collaborators from the Federal Republic of Germany. Several industrial participants are expected, at their own expense. The meeting was co-organized by Dale S. Pearson of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Edwin L. Thomas of MIT together with Joachim Wendorff of the German Plastics Institute, Darmstadt, and Hans Kricheldorf from the Department of Applied and Macro- molecular Chemistry, University of Hamburg. The workshop will be held in a small village near Cologne, and will conclude with a tour and panel discussion at the new Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research at Mainz, FRG. This is a major new facility which indicates the strong interest of the German government and scientific community in polymer science. Prior bilateral meetings in this field (over three years ago and with different participants) resulted in a number of joint research projects, publications and arrangements for sabbaticals in Germany and the U.S. The small size of the meeting is particularly conducive for initiating close professional relationships among people who have not had an opportunity to meet before. The primary objective of the workshop is to address critical areas of polymer science through a well balanced program that includes contributions from chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering. Presentations will be about evenly divided among polymer synthesis and modification, polymer characterization, and polymer theory. Particular emphasis will be given to two areas: synthetic research on electroactive polymers, a topic that has fostered intense collaboration between the physics and chemistry communities, and the more general but rapidly expanding area of polymer theory. Advances in theoretical concepts coupled with the increased availability of supercomputers are having a major impact on the way polymer scientists view macromolecular behavior. In addition, the participants will review progress in several areas included in previous meetings, such as liquid crystalline polymers, self-organizing systems, and polymer interfaces and surfaces. German research in polymer dynamics and surface characterization is among the best in the world due to their excellent facilities for neutron and X-ray scattering studies and some top-notch people.
