Citation
Stylios, G.K. (2013), "Research intensity landscape in textiles and clothing", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 25 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijcst.2013.05825baa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Research intensity landscape in textiles and clothing
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Volume 25, Issue 2
2012 has seen a lot of international conferences and meetings related to textiles and clothing, I can name a few which come to immediate attention:
- 1.
6th International Textile, Clothing and Design Conference, Croatia.
- 2.
The Textile Institute 88th World Conference, Malaysia.
- 3.
12th AUTEX World Conference, Croatia.
- 4.
The Fibre Society Spring Conference, Switzerland.
- 5.
5th International Technical Textiles Congress, Turkey.
- 6.
Ege MEDITEX, Turkey.
- 7.
HITEX, Turkey.
- 8.
SMART Materials Structures and Systems, 4th CIMTEC, Italy.
A number of these meetings, which I was invited and have attended, were not only well organised but perhaps paradoxically had a very healthy number of delegates across academe and industry. This may tell us two things; first that the industry is very much active and there is support for networking, exchanging/presenting ideas, and new products, and that there is a credible research and innovation to be presented and disseminated. The papers presented to these conference were from across continents and generated from developed and developing countries. Another important observation is that these meetings tend to be organised in countries that there is a good textile manufacturing base such as in the case of Turkey for example. Some of these conferences like the AUTEX, the Textile Institute and the 6th ITC&DC were embracing textile, clothing as well as design areas, others were more focused as in the case of technical textiles for example; as in the 5th ITTC and in SMART Materials, Structures and Systems in the 4th CIMTEC.
If one is to map the research intensity landscape there is continuation of research for the gradual advancing of classic (traditional if you like) textile and clothing areas but the predominance is in SMART textiles and garments, in functional fibres and yarns and areas such as nano textiles, wearable electronics and mood changing are increasing in interest especially because they seem to be fusing technology with design, as is the case of the last two. In the paper submissions however I observe less contributions from the design side despite the effort by some of us to integrate design and technology. In these conferences there is no lack of contributions by EU framework seven project consortia and there is also a substantial number of PhD research students who either participate by oral or poster presentations. The latter indicates that the quantity and the quality of the going research in healthy and that we should have confidence in the new blood of researchers in textiles and clothing.
I have conducted a quick paper count (rounded up) and found the following research intensity averages.
Subject (average conference presentations)
- •
Carpets (10)
- •
Colour (20)
- •
Environmental textiles (70)
- •
Fabric composites (60)
- •
Fibres (50)
- •
Garment sizing (20)
- •
Ink jet printing (20)
- •
Medical textiles (80)
- •
Nanotechnology (90)
- •
Plasma (10)
- •
Protective clothing (10)
- •
Simulation (40)
- •
SMART textiles (160)
- •
Technical textiles (70)
- •
Wearable electronics (100)
- •
Weaving (20)
- •
Yarns (30)
The above averages were carried out to provide evidence for discussion and when I added the focus of each paper presented at these conferences the highest average research intensity index HARIX, which is a percentage of the total papers presented was found and is given below.
Highest average research intensity index HARIX (percent)
- 1.
SMART textiles (18.0)
- 2.
Wearable electronics (11.6)
- 3.
Nanotechnology (10.5)
- 4.
Medical textiles (9.3)
- 5.
Environmental textiles (8.1)
- 6.
Fabric composites (6.9)
From this simple study it can be concluded that the result is what to be expected, since government efforts in concentration of funded research in Europe, the USA and other countries is placed in what they call strategic areas of research which are not surprising from where the intensity of papers at the conferences that I examined in 2012 comes from. Of course this can be seen in a positive way that the government wishes are being achieved, or in a negative way that government interferes in research and hence we would lack to major breakthroughs that we had in the past, because people are nowadays not allowed to think outside the funded focus envelope. This discussion should continue.
G.K. StyliosEditor-in-Chief