Welcome

Welcome to the website of the Directed Assembly Network.

The Directed Assembly Grand Challenge Network has been sponsored by EPSRC to promote research into how assembly processes occur at the molecular and supramolecular levels, and how they can be controlled to develop materials with particular properties and functions.
 
To fulfill this brief we hold an annual series of discussion meetings – some are based around our five theme areas, some are held on topics of cross-theme interest and some are earmarked to help Early Career Researchers develop their research network. We also support collaborative research by awarding travel money to enable researchers to share knowledge; we offer seed-funds to embed new skills and offer a small number of pump-priming project grants each year.
 
In all this we are driven by input from the research community we support. Their strategic vision drives the roadmap through which we present work in this area, look at how research in this field might progress in the coming decades, where the barriers to progress lie and how programmes might be targeted to meet these challenges.
 
The science itself is boundary-crossing, reaching beyond traditional discipline-based limits, both in the fundamentals it draws upon and its wide ranging impact. We engage with physicists, materials scientists, biologists, mathematicians and social scientists in academia and industry, as well as chemists and chemical engineers. We reach out to over 600 UK-based Scientists and Engineers and are keen to draw input from all interested parties who wish to work together setting the UK's research agenda in this important area.
 
If you would like to be part of this process, please contact the Network via the Coordinator, Jenny Woods, Please take a look around to find out more about our activities. Follow us on Twitter @DA_Challenge to be kept informed of announcements and new updates appearing on this site.