Background

In response to long standing scientific predictions and warnings from dedicated groups of scientists on humanity’s unsustainable exploitation of  the natural resources and its impact on the environment, recent years have witnessed marked increase in public and governments’ awareness and engagements.  A pinnacle for widespread dissemination and confirmation in recent times is the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepared under the auspices of the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP) and awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize for peace jointly with former US vice-president Mr. Al Gore. 

National academy of Engineering of the US National Academies has recently identified 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century.  The highest ranked challenge is focused on better usage of solar energy while the top 5 challenges are all directly related to energy and environment. 

The European Science Foundation (ESF), in collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF), are organising a workshop focusing on the current and future applications of Smart Materials and Structures (adaptive, multifunctional etc.) to the engineering challenges that limit more efficient Energy production and use.  

This initiative is the result of one of the networking and dissemination activities supported by the ESF-S3T Programme and previous US-Europe collaborative initiatives. S3T (Smart Structural Systems Technology) is currently in progress under ESF’s Collaborative Research Scheme (EUROCORES) and brings together 7 consortia, consisting of about 40 principal investigators and associated partners, from diverse topics of research within the domain of Structural Systems Technologies S3T.  The workshop is organised as a networking and collaborative effort in line with some of the research focus of the S3T programme and the objectives of NSF’s directorate for Engineering, Structural Materials and Mechanics (SMM) in Energy efficiency for the built environment.

 

Attendance

Attendance to this workshop is by invitation only.  The European delegation is in principle from the members of the S3T Programme plus invited speakers for specific topics of the various discussion groups.  The US delegation is selected through the NSF’s programme office for Structural Materials and Mechanics. 

It is intended to invite a maximum of 40 highly recognised researchers and practitioners. All travel and subsistence costs for the European and US invited speakers and the members of the S3T Programme will be covered by the ESF and NSF.

 

Main Objectives

The main motivation for this workshop is to bring together researchers from Smart Structures and Materials communities (multifunctional and adaptive) with those involved in applied research and technology development dealing with Energy and Environment. Specifically, topics such as innovative and efficient means of energy production and consumption, with minimum undesirable environmental impacts will be considered.

 

 At the highest level, and to motivate the following sessions, the workshop will be opened by three keynote presentations on:

1)       Climate change and large-scale sustainable energy production−the big picture

2)       Energy harvesting−smaller-scale distributed energy production and uses

3)       Technology for energy-efficient buildings

The working group discussions will be grouped under the following 4 categories:

a)     Solar (and possibly bio-fuels)

b)    Wind

c)     Energy harvesting

d)    Energy−efficient buildings

Invited experts from both the environmental research and technology development sides will set the stage and provide the context in which dedicated working group discussions will follow. It is intended that a short report be prepared highlighting:

·         The current status of innovative and revolutionary methods and technologies for sustainable energy production, transformation and uses.  

·         The most urgent enabling technologies and expertise that are needed to create major breakthroughs.

·         The directly and indirectly related areas that could benefit from the expertise and research plans of the communities of smart structures and materials.  To identify where impact can be made by these communities.