The Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science and Technology is a consortium of research groups from the Universities of Durham, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford, all of whom are involved research in polymer science and technology. This combination of people provides complementary expertise in polymer chemistry, physics and processing and current research programmes covers a wide range of polymer science and technology. Many of the programmes combine people across the four Universities giving a multi-disciplinary approach to the research.
Research programmes in the Polymer IRC are funded by grants from industry, government bodies and charities that are applied for in competition with others applying to the same funding agencies. Interdisciplinary research programmes that use the skills from each University are particularly encouraged within the Polymer IRC and interdisciplinary working is a characteristic of the research carried out.
The Durham wing of the Polymer IRC springs from the Department of Chemistry, which is very well equipped for research in all aspects of Materials and Polymer Chemistry, for example, elemental analysis, NMR spectroscopy (solid state and solution), mass spectrometry, X-ray crystallography, organic and inorganic synthesis, high pressure facilities.