"Organofluorine chemistry has played a significant role in the majority of the spectacular scientific and technological developments of thepast century although this is not widely recognised even by the scientific community. Fluoroorganic molecules are key components in anever increasing number of high-value commercially important products particularly in the life science industries. The use of fluorinatedsystems in drug discovery programmes has continued to grow and, at present, approximately 30% of new pharmaceutical andagrochemical systems that enter the market bear fluorine atoms or fluorinated substituents, contributing enormously to the economic wellbeingof the EU as a whole and the health of its citizens. All useful fluoroorganic systems are ‘man-made’ and the key step in developingnew products and applications involving fluorinated derivatives is the synthesis of carbon-fluorine bonds. We will develop new selectivefluorination processes by using both innovative chemoselective methodology and the emerging field of synthetic biology to provide newtechnology platforms beyond the current state-of-the-art. The desire to introduce a fluorine atom into an organic system is often driven bythe fact that the C-F bond imparts unique and highly tuneable control of both geometric and stereoelectronic phenomena within a molecularstructure. The Network’s expertise in handling and analysing fluorinated molecules will allow us to engineer the properties of organic andbiological molecules through the strategic introduction of C-F bonds by molecular editing. A large number of world-leading researchscientists in academia in the various fields of organofluorine chemistry have retired in the recent past and, consequently, if training of ESRsand support of youthful research groups is not continued, the EU will lose very competitive, highly valuable, high technology, researchexpertise that contributes significantly to all chemical, life science and materials sectors."