Technical Note: Materials: the economic implications

The pace of change in materials technology has broadened and accelerated in recent years. The electronics and computer industries have gained enormously from developing the use of semiconductor materials. There has been a widening of the scope for using new composite materials, polymers and ceramics. Research in conventional materials such as steel and aluminium has enabled their properties to be enhanced to meet new needs and intensifying competition. Materials research represents a large part of the research costs in aerospace, nuclear energy, electronics and computers, but is also very significant in the more conventional sectors of the economy; new–materials processes are coming to be of equal economic importance compared with new–materials products, and competitive advantage is as likely to lie in better quality of processing as in product innovation. Advanced materials are often uncompetitive where considerations of price rather than performance affect the choice of what a product should be made from. Many governments are recognizing the significance of funding a wide spectrum of materials research, as well as giving attention to standards–setting, dissemination of information, education and training.