Preparative polymer chemistry has made dramatic advances over the last ten years: Because of the invention of controlled radical polymerization techniques, our ability to control and assemble macromolecular structures has reached a point where many previously very hard to access topologies can now be prepared with relative ease. Concomitantly, polymer science has made significant advances in characterizing the prepared structures through the use of advanced characterization techniques ranging from e.g. multi-detector size exclusion chromatography (SEC), coupled SEC soft ionization mass spectrometry as well as chromatography under critical conditions. These advances would not have been possible without the dedicated work of generations of doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers, who are the research backbone of our community.

The Belgian-German polymer meeting to be held at the beautiful conference site of Houffalize in Belgium will provide ample opportunity for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to showcase their work in oral as well as poster presentations, flanked by keynote lectures from two of the most creative polymer scientists of our generation. The research themes will include synthesis (advances in RAFT, ATRP, NMP, novel types of control, combinations of control/living protocols with several types of 'Click' chemistry), molecular characterization (e.g. mass spectrometry, multi-detector and multi-dimensional chromatography, advanced NMR techniques) and materials characterization (e.g. surfaces, spheres, nanoparticles, micelles, vesicles) as well as emerging industrial applications.

We envisage that the conference will pose as a platform to closely connect the German and Belgian polymer communities and stimulate research collaborations from bench-to-bench.
We invite you to be part of the first Belgian-German polymer symposium to be held from the 17th to the 18th of September 2009.

We look forward to welcoming you to Houffalize in September !

Filip Du Prez (Ghent)
Christopher Barner-Kowollik (Karlsruhe)
Philippe Dubois (Mons)