HISTORY
Many years ago, while working in the Corrosion and Protection Centre at the former University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) our late colleague, Professor David Scantlebury, invented the ACPOC conference series. David, who delighted in academic discourse, pleasant surroundings, and excellent local food, designed the event to combine all the things he loved. He also ensured that the conference was informal, and held in the most conducive atmosphere he could think of (Cambridge) settling on Christ’s College as central within the city. His view of a research meeting was to recreate the atmosphere of a “community of scholars”. Like-minded people with a curiosity about a particular subject gather together in an appropriate and creative place and present, discuss, argue, and learn. The initial symposium was very successful, and David followed up with similar events about every five years. David also loved to travel and one of his favourite countries was Japan which inspired the conference to be held at the Tokyo University of Science in 1997.
This upcoming symposium, in September 2024, will therefore be the second time it has been held in Tokyo. It will reflect the state-of-the-art in all things to do with protective organic coatings including: binders, pigments, formulation, mechanisms, surface treatments, inhibition, testing, etc. We are expecting that, like previous symposia, there will be the interchange of knowledge between the different generations of researchers, between industry and academe and between countries.