Looking at inorganic chemistry from afar, it has the appearance of a huge monolithic entity, built primarily from large chemical companies. But in recent years, that monolith has started to shrink, as companies within the industry pursue their policies of consolidation. News of mergers and layoffs certainly isn't encouraging to the existing ranks of inorganic chemists, nor does it invite students to consider joining them.

But a closer look at basic research activity in inorganic chemistry reveals that perhaps the monolith isn't shrinking after all. Rather, its mass is being redistributed in many ways. It is being absorbed into traditionally unrelated disciplines such as proteomics; fragmented into more specialized fields such as catalysis; and rebranded into endeavours such as nanotechnology.

In the United States, there is evidence to indicate that the rising tide of life sciences may lift some fields of inorganic chemistry — particularly areas involving metallic molecules interacting with proteins (see pages 4–6). About half of the 160 recent grant proposals to the US National Science Foundation's inorganic chemistry division could be classified as bio-inorganic or organometallic research.

Elsewhere, fledgling subdisciplines could re-energize the field. For example, in Britain, basic catalysis research could spur a renaissance in some aspects of industrial chemistry (see page 8). And, in Japan and elsewhere, nanotechnology could eventually attract more investment into material sciences (see page 7).

If basic research in each of these areas is adequately funded, fuelling significant scientific progress, inorganic chemistry will once again loom large on the landscape. It will just take on the form of many smaller monuments, rather than a single large one.