Special issue of Matériaux et Techniques devoted to SAM-12

Abstract

The 12th edition of the Society and Materials conferences, SAM-12, took place in Metz, France from 23 to 24May, 2018. This special issue ofMatériaux et Techniques collects 9 papers presented during this meeting. These papers can be regarded as highlights of the conference, in as far as they deal with some of the main topics that were discussed during these two days. SAM conferences are dedicated to the exploration of the interdisciplinary boundaries related to materials and their connection with society, the environment and nature. They try to analyze how anthroposphere, biosphere and geosphere interact. They propose new approaches, new methodologies and act as a laboratory for new thinking in the area. One boundary between the spheres is related to Materials and Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH): – the paper by Jean-Pierre Birat explores the matter of environmental ethics, which is the contribution of ethics and philosophy for fleshing out the concepts of sustainable development, which the material community has adopted wholeheartedly, of the circular economy, of the responsibilities for pollution, of the nature of pollution, etc. [1]; – Michael Kohlgrüber et al. [2] discuss the topic of social innovation and show how impowering the future users of a new technology in the workplace to engage in process innovation accelerates its implementation and its timeto-market. It also speeds up the Social Life-Cycle of that particular innovation (the concept is defined in the previous paper).