Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. From 9:00 to 14:00
Auditorium, Martina Casiano Building
UPV/EHU Science Park, Bizkaia Campus, Leioa.
Attendance at the event will be in person and requires prior registration.
Deadline for registration: November 15th
New Materials for a Better Life Workshop 2025
Critical materials for critical environments and critical applications
The rapid societal and economic changes we are experiencing are strongly related to advance materials and materials technologies. To properly and efficiently implement digitalization and energy transition, to successfully tackle environmental concerns, and to properly implement novel paradigms in biomedicine and health, it is required novel materials designs, tailored functional responses and advanced materials integration processes.
Some of those materials, developments or applications are within the concept of “criticality”:
-they rely on critical materials which supply is at risk due to scarcity, geopolitical factors, or limited sources of extraction and processing,
-they are applied in critical environments, i.e. extreme operational conditions in which materials must maintain their performance and integrity,
-or they are integrated into critical applications, the failure of materials being not acceptable due to safety, performance, or economic impact.
Elements and materials belonging to those classes are essential for technological competitivity and therefore they must be properly and timely addressed to transform challenges into opportunities for the generation of value though disruptive materials-based solutions and technologies to address key society challenges.
The recognition of this fact has allowed the development and implementation of ecosystems to obtain, optimize, implement, recover and reuse those elements and materials as well as to design novel materials with specific characteristics and stability for the most demanding applications.
The present workshop will allow to discuss, in a comprehensive way, the path for successfully dealing with the different aspects of criticality. From basic science to innovation and from innovation to application. Presentations include a broad range of areas, such as Policy Framework, Advanced Materials Design, and the requirements and applications in areas including energy, aeronautics and aerospace, among others, analysing also environmental issues in the scope of mining and recycling, among other interesting areas.
In this critical time, we must also be aware of the words and the lessons of the great Aesop (620 BC – 560 BC) in his fable “The Lion and the Mouse”: “In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest.”
BCMaterials Scientific Director