Scientific & Industrial Advisory
Independent expert advice on soft and complex matter, colloidal, layered, and bio-based materials, and the scattering and imaging methods used to characterise them.
I'm Jon Otto Fossum — founder of SCML International, professor of physics at NTNU from 2000 to 2025, presently since 2026 Senior Visiting Researcher at CNPEM, Campinas-SP, Brazil, Senior Affiliated Researcher at PMMH–ESPCI Paris (CNRS/PSL/Sorbonne), and Adjunct Senior Scientist at the University of Bayreuth. Three decades designing experiments and interpreting data at major European and international large-scale facilities — ESRF, ISIS, MAX IV, HZB, ALBA, DESY, Sirius–LNLS, and others. Full CV and affiliations on the Contact page.
I take on a limited number of advisory engagements where deep methodological expertise decides whether a project stalls or moves.
Where I add most value
- Scattering & characterisation strategy for R&D — SAXS, SANS, WAXS/XRD, and XPCS at large-scale facilities, plus complementary lab methods (rheometry, microfluidics, thermogravimetry, gas adsorption): what to measure, at which instrument or facility, how to design the experiment, and how to read the data. Most industrial R&D teams don't have this in-house and don't need it full-time.
- Layered & inorganic materials — synthetic clays and nanosheets: gas separation and CO2 capture, structural colour and pigments, and confinement-driven chemistry. Three decades at the core of this field.
- Plant-based & bio-derived materials — sustainable materials from natural sources: plant-derived Pickering emulsions and the structure, stability, and rheology of soft biological materials.
- Soft & complex matter — colloids, gels, dispersions, emulsions, and lamellar systems, and the structure–property relationships that govern them.
- Research proposals — shaping and strengthening competitive applications (EU/EIC, M-ERA.NET, national schemes), where I have a strong record as both coordinator and partner.
Who I work with
Industrial R&D groups needing scattering, characterisation, or materials expertise they can't justify hiring full-time; startups and SMEs turning a materials idea — inorganic or bio-based — into a fundable, testable programme; investors and expert networks needing technical due diligence; and academic groups wanting an external co-investigator or facility-proposal partner.
How engagements work
Short and flexible — an hourly consultation (including via expert networks), a fixed-scope advisory package, or sub-contracted technical work on a defined deliverable. All engagements are contracted through SCML International AS. Advisory is kept deliberately occasional, alongside SCML's research: what you get is senior attention, not a junior hand-off.
Operating model
SCML International is an independent research company with no in-house laboratory. Experimental work runs through large-facility access and established partner labs — which keeps the advice vendor-neutral and grounded in what the best available instruments can actually deliver.