The lectures so far have been given by:
2023 - Professor Victoire de Margerie, Founder and Vice-Chairman, World Materials Forum, Materials Science: Key opportunities and challenges by 2035
2022 - Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero, Department of Computer Science & Technology, University of Cambridge, Towards a Zero-Carbon Future
2021 - Professor Dierk Raabe, Director, Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, Düsseldorf, Germany, Sustainable Metals
2020 - no Forum
2019 - Professor Yves Bréchet, Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP) and Scientific Director of the Saint Gobain company, Teaching science to politicians, the example of materials science: a hopeless but unavoidable challenge?
2018 - Professor Peter Bruce FRS, Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Materially better batteries
2017 - Professor Mike Cates FRS, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Bulletproof Custard: Discontinuous Shear Thickening in Very Dense Suspensions
2016 - Professor Ric Parker CBE FREng, Latterly Director of Research and Technology for Rolls-Royce plc, Advanced Materials - Flying High
2015 - Professor Angela Belcher, W.M. Keck Professor of Energy, Department of Biological Engineering, Department of Materials Science & Engineering and, The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Giving New Life to Materials for Energy, the Environment and Medicine
2014 - Professor Nicholas D. Spencer, Chair, Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich and President, ETH Research Commission. Made-to-Measure Surfaces
2013 - Professor Sir Colin Humphreys CBE FRS FREng, Director of Research, Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge. Lighting the Future
2012 - Dr Alan Taub, Vice President (retired), Global Research & Development, General Motors. Materials Challenges for a Sustainable Automotive Industry
2011 - Professor Albert Fert, Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS-Thales, Palaiseau and Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France. Spintronics : electrons, spins, computers and telephones
2010 - Professor Ke Lu, Director of the Institute for Materials Research in Shenyang, China. Nano-twinned materials
2009 - Professor C N R Rao FRS Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. Doing nanoscience research in emerging India
2008 - Professor Greg Olson, Wilson-Cook Professor of Engineering Design, Northwestern University. Materials by Design: Frankensteels driving innovation in research and education
2007 - Professor Mike Ashby, Dept of Engineering, Cambridge University. Environmentally-informed material choice: strategies, tools, data and difficulties
2006 - Professor Michael Coey, Magnetism and Spin Research Group in the Department of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin. Magnetic Materials
2005 - Professor Daniel Morse, Director, UCSB-MIT-Caltech Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California Santa Barbara. Biologically inspired routes for materials synthesis and nanofabrication: High performance with low environmental impact
2004 - Professor Herbert Gleiter, Director, Institute for Nanotechnology, Research Centre Karlsruhe, Germany. Nanostructured solids: A gateway to elements that lie 'between' the elements of the Periodic Table
2003 - Professor Akihisa Inoue, Director, Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan. Bulk nonequilibrium alloys by stabilization of supercooled liquid
2002 - Professor J. W. Edington, formerly Head of Research, Alcan; Head of Research British Steel. Commercialisation of materials science - entrepreneurship - creating wealth - enjoying your life
2001 - Professor S. Suresh, Head of Dept. of Materials Science & Engineering, MIT. Nano- and micro-scale mechanical properties for miniature technologies
2000 - Professor A. Evans, then at Princeton University. Mechanisms controlling the durability of thermal barrier coatings
1999 - The inaugural lecture was given by Professor Anthony Kelly, formerly Vice-Chancellor, University of Surrey. Fibre composites - the weave of history