Due to recent developments in global economy, such as increasing importance of the knowledge-based products and materials for a competitive and sustainable growth of the society, the scientists are confronted with several new challenges. In order to respond to those challenges Polish research and educational institutions must shift a "centre of gravity" of their activities from pure and fundamental science towards applied and technology oriented investigations. The NANOSAM project is aime d to fulfil such mission by achieving the following goals:

• to transform a research profile of the Institute towards the most modern and technologically important topics of materials science;

• to participate in sharing of a "know-how" experience and research results between leading European RTD Centres for nano-science and advanced materials, and the scientific community of Southern Poland (this includes so called "twinning activities" with such centres);

• to increase opportunities for the Centre to act as a "training facility for trainers" in a framework of co-operation with the research institutions from countries of Central and Eastern Europe;

• to initiate and take part in existing networking relations in the NANOSAM field within Poland, as well as on European scale;

• to acquire necessary experience in performing applied and technology oriented research in the environment of market economy;

• to built the Centre capacity for better training of young undergraduate and graduate students, so that they will be able to compete on the European job market;

• to built capacity of the Centre for further developments in the most modern directions of materials science and technology along the priorities of the V-th and the coming VI-th EC Framework Programs.