Slide 1

Mujumdar - Current Status of Global R&D in Drying

benefited by being exposed to industrial needs so that they could develop new viable
research programs. Cross-fertilization of ideas occurred as participants from different
disciplines, different countries and different industries inter-mingled and readily appre-
ciated the commonality of several drying problems they had thought to be the exclusive
domains of their discipline or industry. This awareness also helped develop research
collaborations and avoid unnecessary duplication of research efforts. Many vendors of
drying equipment presented technical aspects of their new drying equipment while
many academic researchers have put forward truly innovative new concepts for dryer
design that the vendors should try to commercialize.

Without significant industrial participation there is a danger that academic re-
searchers will follow what I call a “closed-loop” approach to research. Basically it leads
to academic research by academics and for academics. In an applied field such as drying
results of research are wasted if they are not used by industry in some fashion. In the
closed loop approach one academic paper spawns another and this sequence continues
indefinitely until, perhaps, research funds run out. While this does lead to a larger cita-
tion frequency the results are typically wasted. What we really need to assess drying
research (and indeed any other applied research) is a “utilization index” and not a cita-
tion index since only another academic can typically cite a published paper. I believe
that IDS provides an opportunity for the academic to interact with its industrial coun-
terpart and familiarize himself/herself with real world problems awaiting effective solu-
tions. It is hoped that dryer vendors will take advantage of the IDS and its sister series of
symposia to obtain new ideas for design, optimization, control etc.

Table 9.1. List of IDS Series/Venues

Year Event

1977 International Symposium on Drying announced in March

1978 First Symposium held at McGill University, Canada

1980 Second Symposium held also in Montreal

1982 Birmingham, UK – Symposium series goes global

1984 Kyoto, Japan – Term IDS used for first time

1986 Cambridge, USA – Major Awards initiated

1988 Versailles, France

1990 Prague, Czech Republic – First time IDS was part of a

major international conference (CHISA’90)

1992 Back to square one: Montreal, Canada

1994 Gold Coast, Australia

1996 Krakow, Poland

1998 Halkidiki, Greece