how we do it

ICS operates through:

Research | Fellowships | Meetings and courses | Networking | E-learning

relevant to the priorities of its three institutional Areas:

Pure and Applied Chemistry 

Earth, Environmental and Marine Sciences and Technologies

High Technology and New Materials

which focus on four core programmes:

Within these programmes ICS aims at:

• promote state-of-the-art research and disseminate scientific knowledge through advanced training;
• support scientific communities in developing countries and countries in economic transition;
• bring benefits for individual scientists and technologists from beneficiary countries;
• provide decision makers with expertise in science-based technologies.

The 2009 Work Programme was designed to underline the specific role of the ICS in the context of the existing international scientific community of Trieste, i.e. to provide scientific and high technological support for ensuring sustainable industrial development in developing countries and countries in economic transition.

Biofuels like bioethanol and biodiesel have already elicited the interest worldwide. For developing countries like those of sub-Saharan Africa, there could be severe competition for land between the domestic biofuel/bioenergy needs and the food needs. This makes it imperative that these countries address their attention to the more environmentally beneficial technologies of the "next generation" biofuels. These should avoid the competition with cultivations dedicated to food production and address instead the use of low-value ligno-cellulosic material such as can be obtained from shrubs, marginal (dry) land growth, sawdust, cleanings of forest undergrowth (with the extra bonus of reducing fire hazards), etc.

In principle, biomass can be converted, by various processes into biofuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel, biomethane and biohydrogen.

Furthermore, low-value lignocellulosic material can also represent a feedstock to transform into high added value chemicals and polymers.

As concerns the Rational Drug Design and Development programme, it has become widely accepted that both molecular modelling and combinatorial chemistry/technology are unanimously considered as one of the key instruments of R&D in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.  These approaches accelerate the development of new molecules of potential industrial interest, optimize molecular structures either by creating molecular populations or rationally designed compounds with the desired properties, and search new molecular drug targets.

A clear trend in pharma industry shows that drug discovery processes have evolved from the traditional ways to the rational design of effective drugs, based on the detailed knowledge of the chemical and three-dimensional structures of critical target molecules of the human organism or of pathogenic micro-organisms.  Three typical cases of this successful approach have been the effective drugs against influenza, AIDS and certain forms of leukemia.

This programme covered by the ICS Area of Pure and Applied Chemistry started in 1997 as Combinatorial Chemistry and Molecular Design. Later it focused on two major fields of applications namely: rational design and discovery of drugs and computer design of new molecules and molecular processes (eg. biofuel production).

As for geothermal energy, this represents an almost ideal source, particularly for developing countries and for countries in economic transition, since it is practically inexhaustible, it does not produce greenhouse gases, it can provide in an efficient way electricity, heat or both, it is present in relatively easily exploitable form in many parts of the world, with a very promising concentration in some developing world areas, notably some of the poorest countries of the African continent.

Generally speaking, the interior of our planet contains a huge amount of heat the full extent of which is not even well defined, but certainly in large excess on the predictable energy needs of humankind for the future eons. Extracting this energy in a practical and economic way is a not trivial task, but fortunately, throughout the surface of the earth, at relatively little depths (three to ten kilometres), the geophysical history of the planetary crust has left local deposits of hot fluid magma that will continue to disperse huge amounts of heat in the nearby rocks for the next hundreds of thousands years.

Global geophysical analysis indicates extended areas of potential interest, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the major expected crustal thermal anomalies are identified in the rift valley zone, an area including namely Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, West Tanzania, Djibouti. Thus, all these African countries have the possibility of developing autonomous, clean energy sources for all their needs and of autonomously developing novel exploitation technologies that can be exported to other parts of the world.

Nano-science and its derivative technologies have the potential to improve the growth of the developing world if the applications are designed and tailored to best fit the needs of their people. Nanotechnology, unlike other technologies, offers a unique chance to bridge the technological gap between industrialized and developing countries. In its advanced form, nanotechnology will have a significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society. It will offer better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for home, communication, medicine, energy, transportation, agriculture and industry in general, all sectors in which the High Technology and New Materials Area gained a deep experiences/internal expertise  in the past activities.

Furthermore, in the case of nanotechnology more than other technical and scientific fields, the knowledge acquisition issue represents an important and sensitive challenge due to the fact that nanotechnology represents a convergence of several different sciences and topics (i.e. physics, engineering, mathematics, chemistry, biology, etc.). Therefore, to promote the use of nanotechnology in developing countries to improve and implement social and economic development, the following aspects became crucial: 

a) the partnerships between academia and industry to advance and implement nanotechnology for economic development b) the support and promotion of the cooperation and networking between scientific and technological research centres and industry located both in industrialized and developing countries, c) the promotion and support of projects dealing with the creation of innovative products developing, using and adapting nanotechnology to address local needs and/or for international markets and d)  the extensive use of ad hoc financial instruments.