For the last few decades, materials science has been at the heart of industrial innovation. The development or optimisation of materials (metals, ceramics, polymers, composites and nanomaterials) as well as new adaptations of and applications for them have been at the root of key technological advances in fields such as spatial industry, aeronautics, transportation, energy, construction, and medicine, and now NTICs too. Every day, new materials are being created that offer new features and better performances, and that open the way to new applications.

According to an international estimation, most innovations in products and processes over the next two or three decades will be based on new materials. Because of the time lag between idea and product, research in this field requires major, long-term applied and fundamental research efforts.

The Science and Analysis of Materials (SAM) department is a laboratory that is both a fundamental and applied research facility as well as an analytical services laboratory. It provides assistance to more than 100 industrial and academic partners worldwide in their technological research and development, with regard to materials and surfaces R&D.