Recommendation 5: To enhance progress in polymer science and engineering through increased collaboration across the subfields of materials science and engineering, the committee recommends the following:

• Initiation of efforts to better integrate the field of polymer science and engineering both internally among polymer subdisciplines and externally with other materials subfields, including, for example, establishment of interdisciplinary programs by academia, initiation of cooperative programming by professional societies, funding of synergistic cross-boundary projects by government agencies, and structural reorganization by industrial laboratories to maximize cooperation among the various materials subfields;

• Adoption by funding agencies of a broader definition of polymer science and engineering in order to foster advances in interdisciplinary research and education; and

• Efforts to take advantage of research opportunities at the interfaces between polymer science and engineering and other materials areas.

Business Week. 1993. ''R&D Scoreboard: In the Labs, the Fight to Spend Less, Get More." June 28, pp. 102-127.

Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology (FCCSET). 1992. Advanced Materials and Processing: The Fiscal Year 1993 Program . A report by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, FCCSET Committee on Industry and Technology. (Available from Committee on Industry and Technology/COMAT, c/o National Institute of Standards and Technology, Rm. B309, Materials Building, Gaithersburg, MD 20899.)

National Research Council (NRC). 1981. Polymer Science and Engineering: Challenges, Needs, and Opportunities. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

National Research Council (NRC). 1989. Materials Science and Engineering for the 1990s: Maintaining Competitiveness in the Age of Materials. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

National Science Foundation (NSF). 1992. National Patterns of R&D Resources: 1992. NSF 92-330. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.