Research in the eight cluster centres is aiming to improve medicinal products by overcoming the current limitations on the molecular, particulate, process and product level through a better understanding of the fundamental science that is causing these limitations.

The research activities in the different cluster centres are focusing on improving process understanding through development of novel analytical solutions enabling efficient process monitoring and control solutions, and further, on modelling solutions in these environments.

The major research theme in the cluster is focusing on the understanding of the science behind common pharmaceutical processing operations from both an applied and a fundamental perspective. The development of different analytical techniques with a special emphasis on spectroscopic techniques is an essential prerequisite for increased process understanding.

The PSSRC cluster centers have available all critical unit operations of pharmaceutical relevance for joint projects and for industrial co-operation projects. PSSRC is the ideal partner for support in analytical process research and related intellectual property issues.

The following section of the website gives an overview of the different areas of research in the PSSRC.

Processing of pharmaceuticals
Crystallization Spray drying Freeze drying Homogenisation Milling	Mixing High shear wet granulation Fluid bed granulation Roller compaction Extrusion Spheronization Tabletting Coating	Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) Quality by Design (QbD) Scale up Continuous processing
Characterisation
Intramolecular level	Intermolecular level	Particulate level
Vibrational spectroscopy - mid and near infrared (NIR), Raman Solid state NMR	X-ray diffraction (XRPD) Optical and electron microscopy (PLM, SEM and TEM) Thermal analytical techniques (DSC, TGA) Vibrational spectroscopy (terahertz/ far infrared)	Micrometrics (surface area, density, porosity) Powder characterisation (particle size, shape, distributions, flow properties) Water sorption Solubility Surface properties (AFM) Profilometry
Chemical Mapping	Dosage form level
Infrared, NIR and Raman Screening Solid-form screening	X-ray microtomography Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI) Optical coherence tomography (OCT) Dissolution testing and modelling
Modelling
Molecular properties	Particle ensemble level	Process conditions
Fundamental molecular properties Chemometrics and data mining	Discrete element modelling Computational fluid dynamics Drug release mechanisms	Mechanisms of solid state transformations Chemometrics