From the Editor

Abstract

British Ceramic T ransactions (BCT ) in its current and previous formats is over 100 volumes rich in ceramic literature. However, the growth in the subject area of ceramics has also seen rather dramatic changes in the past 50 years, and it may be that BCT has not fully embraced these developments. In the early to mid twentieth century emphasis was on traditional or clay ceramics with demand only for whiteware (tiles, sanitaryand toiletware), building materials (bricks, cement, concrete), refractories, and glass. Microand nanoscale processing and forming and ceramic synthesis from precursors were rather irrelevant to the ceramics discipline. The 1950s heralded a new dawn with the development of a group of materials termed special ceramics (now known as engineering ceramics) oVering potential high tech applications. Today we further classify engineering ceramics into structural, functional, and bio-ceramics, but the euphoria of the late 1980s and 90s that structural ceramics such as 34 and SiC would become leading engineering materials, particularly in engines, has resulted in heartbreak and despair in the ceramics community. In contrast, developments in functional ceramics (electrical, electronic, superconducting, and optical ) and bioceramics (e.g. implants and devices for the human body) have shown a clear upward surge, and the latter particularly has helped the ceramics community to make novel and productive alliances with the medical fraternity.