For more than 15 years, SAM conferences have been an international forum for exchanging on new methodologies, new concepts and new issues that connect materials, products, environment and society from different perspectives, ranging from social to engineering sciences

As such, they have been a laboratory for thought and knowledge experiments, which have produced about 500 papers and introduced some of the best intuitions in these areas – which were then further developed elsewhere. Issues and questions sitting at the heart of contemporary societal challenges and of expected paradigm shifts are also being covered as a kind of application lab. Some special disciplines like Material Flow Analysis or Life Cycle Assessment, have been at the core of the meetings, as long as they were focusing on new directions and on innovative methodologies.<br>More scientific approaches, driven by social science, economics or materials science have also been presented. The focus was always on pluridisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.