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First considerations concerning the
establishment of some kind of international
cooperation in the field of polymer networks
arose in the early seventies during numerous
contacts between the Centre de Recherches sur
les Macromolecules CNRS (now Institut Charles
Sadron) in Strasbourg and the Institute of
Macromolecular Chemistry CSAS in Prague (Benoit,
Hild, Rempp, Dusek). However, it was not until
1974, during the Faraday Discussion of the Royal
Society of Chemistry in Norwich on Gels and
Gelling Systems, that a group of participants
(Allen, Burchard, Dusek, Gordon, Herz, Hild,
Rempp, Ross-Murphy, Stepto, Ziabicki, and
perhaps some others) considered the foundation
of an international organization. The ideas took
a more definite shape during the IUPAC
Microsymposium "Crosslinking and Networks" in
Prague later in 1974.
Officially, the international organization
started its activities in 1975. This was also
the year of its first meeting, taking place
jointly at CRM Strasbourg (H. Benoit, G. Hild)
and Freiburg (W. Burchard, H.J. Cantow). The
final decision to form a group (Allen, Benoit,
Dusek, Gordon, Hild) was taken in October 1975
and the organization was given the name Polymer
Network Club. It was decided that no formal
structure of the Club was necessary and that the
business would be run by a Secretary. G. Hild
was asked to serve as Secretary to the Club. H.
Benoit tried to get recognition of the Club by
the Macromolecular Division of IUPAC. However,
the possible sense of exclusiveness of a "club"
was objected to and, therefore, later (1977)
"Club" was changed to "Group". Moreover, it was
felt that the proposed activities of the Group
did not fit well the usual activities of a IUPAC
Working Party and it was recommended that IUPAC
sponsorships be sought individually for
conferences, or that collaborative projects be
included in existing IUPAC Working Parties.
Eventually, a separate Working Party on Polymer
Networks was launched in 1987 under the
chairmanship of R.F.T. Stepto.
In 1975-6, the PNG started with about 40
participants from France, United Kingdom,
Federal Republic of Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Poland and The Netherlands. Over the years, the
number of members (now more than 1000) and their
activities have continued to increase and it was
felt that some more formal and efficient
organizational structure would be useful. In
1986, the first Chairman (R.F.T. Stepto) and
Vice-Chairman (K. Dusek) were elected during the
Elsinore meeting and G. Hild was confirmed in
his position of PNG Secretary. It was decided
that the Chairman would serve for four years and
the office would then be taken over by the
Vice-Chairman. More recently, the post of
Treasurer was created.
The above text was originally composed by the first two PNG Chairs, K. Dusek and R. F. T. Stepto.
The complete list of the PNG Chairs and their term are given below:
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1986-1990 Robert .F.T. Stepto
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1990-1994 Karel.Dusek
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1994-1998 Ole Kramer
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1998-2002 Walther Burchard
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2002-2006 Erik Geissler
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2006-2010 Eric J. Amis
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2010-2014 Ferenc Horkay
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2014-2018 Mitsuhiro Shibayama
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