Today the chemical and process engineering especially involving chemical reactor engineering has to answer to the changing needs of the chemical and related process industries such as petroleum, petrochemical, bituminous, pharmaceutical and health, agro and food, environment, iron and steel, building materials, paints, glass, surfactants, electronics, cosmetic and perfume, etc., and to meet market demands. So being a key to survival in globalisation of trade and competition, the evolution of chemical engineering is thus necessary. And to satisfy both, the market requirements for specific end-use properties of the products manufactured in (bio)chemical reactors and the social and the resource-saving and environmental constraints of the industrial-scale processes and technologies, it is shown that a necessary progress is coming via a multidisciplinary and time and length multiscale approach. In such a frame the future for the science and technologies of new materials can be summarized by four main objectives: (1) a total multiscale control of the process (or the procedure) to increase selectivity and productivity, i.e., nanotailoring of materials with controlled structure; (2) a design of novel equipment based on scientific principles and new operation modes and methods of production: process intensification; (3) product design and engineering: manufacturing end-use properties with a special emphasis on complex fluids and solids technology; (4) an implementation of the multiscale and multidisciplinary computational chemical engineering modelling and simulation to real-life situations: from the molecule to the overall complex production scale into the entire production site. Moreover, chemical and process engineering will also be increasingly involved and concerned with the application of life cycle assessment to new material design and production and its use but also to the plant and the equipment together with the associated services. (c) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.