In cosmetics and personal care, innovation is often limited by formulation realities: stability, texture and sensory performance, processing robustness, and the need to reformulate under sustainability constraints. The Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP) at the University of Edinburgh brings together soft matter physics, rheology, materials characterisation and simulation to deliver insights that can be acted on in R&D and manufacturing.
A conversation with Dr. Daniel Hodgson; Director of the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP), University of Edinburgh
“ECFP is designed to operate at industrial pace, while still delivering deep, publishable scientific insight.”
EURO COSMETICS: What is the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
The Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP) is an industry-facing research partnership based at the University of Edinburgh (UoE), focused on the science and engineering of formulated products.
We work at the intersection of soft matter physics, formulation science, rheology, materials characterisation, and processing, tackling the kinds of problems that routinely limit innovation in cosmetics: stability, texture, sensory performance, processing robustness, and reformulation under sustainability constraints.
What makes ECFP distinctive is that we are problem-led rather than technique-led. Companies come to us with real formulation or processing challenges, and we bring together academic expertise, dedicated in-house scientists, and advanced experimental and modelling capabilities to deliver insight that can be acted on in R&D and manufacturing. An example of this is understanding the multi-functional roles of environmentally persistent chemistries used in haircare and skincare products so that bio-based alternatives can be rationally swapped in, without an extensive screening process. Often molecules have more than one ‘job description’ in a formulation and so drop in solutions can be challenging to find.
EURO COSMETICS: Does ECFP work with small companies as well as multinational corporations, and does ECFP work with companies based outside the UK?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
Yes to both. We work with start-ups, SMEs, and global multinational companies, and our industrial partners span the UK, Europe, North America, and Asia. The cosmetics and personal care sector is a particularly strong area for us, precisely because formulation challenges are shared across company size and geography.
Our model is flexible: for smaller companies, we often act as an extension of their R&D capability, while for large organisations we typically support more focused projects that de-risk innovation pipelines, explore new formulation spaces, or build fundamental understanding that internal teams don’t have time to generate.
Importantly, our collaborations are structured to be commercially relevant and IP-aware, which is essential for companies operating in highly competitive formulation markets.
EURO COSMETICS: In addition to accessing the academic expertise across the UoE does ECFP have its own dedicated scientific staff?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
Yes, and this is a core strength of ECFP. Alongside access to the University of Edinburgh’s wider academic expertise, ECFP has dedicated scientific leadership and research staff who work directly on industrial projects. A key figure in this is Professor David J. Moore, who brings extensive experience spanning skin and hair biophysics, in vitro and ex vivo models, product development, physical chemistry, and industrial formulation science.
Professor Moore has worked across both academia and industry, with previous roles and collaborations including GSK, Tioga Research, Ashland, and Unilever, and has a long track record of applying fundamental science to real-world cosmetic and personal care challenges. His research background covers areas highly relevant to the sector, including substrate–formulation interactions, materials science, transport phenomena, and the physical chemistry underpinning product performance.
Beyond this core expertise, ECFP provides structured access to a very broad range of capabilities across the University of Edinburgh. This spans the synthesis and characterisation of novel biodegradable and bio-based polymers, advanced digital and simulation methodologies, expertise in clinical dermatology and skin health, and extensive biophysics and biofilm expertise. Crucially, ECFP acts as the interface that brings these capabilities together in a focused, industry-relevant way, so companies engage with a coherent team rather than a collection of disconnected disciplines.
EURO COSMETICS: Is ECFP able to publish and present its research in the cosmetic science area that arises from industrial collaborations?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
Yes, where appropriate, and only ever with agreement from our industrial partners. Many of our projects result in publishable, pre-competitive scientific insight that benefits both the company and the wider sector. We regularly publish in areas such as formulation physics, rheology, and processing–structure–property relationships, and present at relevant conferences.
That said, we are very pragmatic. Confidentiality, IP protection, and freedom to operate come first. Publications are only pursued when they align with the partner’s strategic goals and are carefully scoped to avoid disclosure of sensitive formulations or proprietary know-how.
For many companies, the ability to publish jointly with a leading university is actually a positive, supporting employer branding, scientific credibility, and recruitment.
EURO COSMETICS: The UoE is well known as a pioneering university in computer science, simulations, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Do cosmetic companies work with ECFP on projects which utilise these capabilities?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
We are seeing strong interest from cosmetic companies in using data-driven and science-informed approaches to accelerate formulation development and reduce experimental burden. Through ECFP, companies can access capabilities from across the University in simulation across multiple length scales, machine learning, and AI, integrated with our high-quality experimental methodologies.
Our approach combines mechanistic understanding of complex fluids with modern data science, which is essential in formulation spaces where data are sparse, noisy, and expensive to generate.
Typical applications include identifying formulation–structure–property relationships, predicting rheology or stability trends, and designing more efficient experimental campaigns; all areas where cosmetics R&D teams see clear value.
EURO COSMETICS: Sustainability is a key driver of innovation for many cosmetic companies and a key focus area at the UoE. How can ECFP’s technical expertise support sustainable innovation for cosmetic companies?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
Sustainable innovation in cosmetics almost always comes down to reformulation, i.e., replacing ingredients, reducing environmental impact, or enabling circularity, without compromising performance, sensory properties, or processability. This is exactly where ECFP’s expertise lies.
We help companies understand how changes in ingredients or processing propagate through microstructure, rheology, stability, and sensory-relevant properties. That allows sustainable alternatives to be evaluated on a sound scientific basis, rather than trial-and-error. For example, coupling measurements of shear viscosity, normal stress differences and extension rheology and soft tribology allow us to gain insight into consumer-relevant descriptors such as ‘spreadability’, ‘smoothness’, or ‘stickiness’, enabling lab-based comparisons of existing formulations and the impact of novel sustainable chemistries.
Our work spans areas such as bio-based and renewable ingredients, reduction of petrochemical-derived components, formulation robustness to supply-chain variability, and processing efficiency. Importantly, we also work with our industry partners to consider manufacturability and scale-up, which is often where otherwise promising sustainable formulations fail. We support suppliers and formulators to evaluate novel ingredients across a range of different performance criteria to support inclusion of these often more expensive components.
EURO COSMETICS: What types of cosmetic formulation challenges are companies most commonly bringing to ECFP?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
In cosmetics, the challenges we most commonly see relate to physical stability, texture and sensory perception, rheological control, ingredient substitution during reformulation, and variability introduced by raw materials or processing conditions. We also increasingly see challenges linked to speed of development, companies wanting to explore new formulation spaces more efficiently, with fewer experimental iterations.
Examples of this include diagnosing stability in emulsion-based formulations. A common approach for us is to undergo a process of ‘reductive formulation’, in which we will breakdown a complex commercial system into simpler models, building up understanding of the functional role of key ingredients. Through this process we can rebuild a robust formulation, mitigating stability issues.
Other examples include challenges around characterising dynamic end user conditions, which often include dilution with water or drying on surfaces, coupled with high shear during application. We characterise physical properties during these formulation changes and help companies link the dramatic changes in e.g., viscosity, structural heterogeneity, or surface tension with consumer experience at the relevant stage of product use.
What unites these problems is that they are rarely solved by chemistry alone. They require an understanding of structure–property–processing relationships, which is where complex fluids and soft matter science provide real leverage.
EURO COSMETICS: How does working with ECFP differ from a more traditional academic collaboration?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
The key difference is that ECFP is designed to operate at industrial pace, while still delivering deep, publishable scientific insight.
Projects are scoped around clearly defined technical questions and commercial objectives, with realistic timelines and agreed deliverables. Typical projects will include a diagnosis of the challenge, co-development of a series of work packages including measurement and analysis, and deliverables based around actionable insights rooted in scientific understanding. Importantly, companies are not simply handed off to a short-term PhD or student project. Instead, they work with a stable team of experienced research scientists and engineers whose role is to drive progress, maintain momentum, and ensure relevance to industrial decision-making.
Academic expertise is brought in to add genuine value, for example, to address a specific scientific bottleneck or introduce a new technique. This structure significantly reduces friction for industry partners and avoids the common pitfalls of traditional academic collaborations, such as slow start-up, unclear ownership, or misaligned expectations.
For many partners, this approach means that useful insight is generated within months rather than years, allowing R&D teams to make informed go/no-go decisions, accelerate promising formulation concepts, or confidently rule out unproductive directions early.
EURO COSMETICS: Can ECFP support companies at different stages of the innovation pipeline, from early concept to scale-up?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
Yes, and this flexibility is one of our strengths. We work with companies at very early stages, where the goal may be to understand feasibility or map formulation space, as well as later-stage projects focused on optimisation, robustness, or scale-up risk. Many projects evolve naturally from one stage to another as understanding builds.
Because we combine fundamental insight with practical experimentation and modelling, we can help companies avoid common late-stage failures, for example, formulations that work at lab scale but struggle during processing or manufacturing.
EURO COSMETICS: How can cosmetic and speciality chemicals companies engage with ECFP, and what are the next steps for starting a collaboration?
Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
The starting point is simply a technical conversation. Companies typically contact us with a formulation or processing challenge they are facing, or an innovation direction they want to explore. We then work with them to define a focused project that aligns scientific opportunity with commercial priorities, including appropriate handling of confidentiality and IP from the outset. Practical first steps will include a scoping conversation followed by an NDA, as needed, and development of an initial proposal. This programme of work and associated deliverables will be iterated to meet company technical, cost, and timeline expectations.
For companies attending in-cosmetics 2026, we will be present throughout the event and very happy to arrange informal meetings. Many of our most successful collaborations have started with a short discussion at a conference, followed by a clearly scoped, funded project that delivers insight within a defined timeframe.
EURO COSMETICS: Thank you for sharing these insights with us.
About Dr. Daniel Hodgson:
At the interface of academia and industry, he leads collaborations in formulation science, soft matter and complex fluids. He partners with R&D teams across cosmetics and personal care, food, agrochemicals and advanced materials to de-risk innovation and support sustainable product development.
About the University of Edinburgh:
Professor Dr. David Moore, Professor · ECFP/UoE
In 2024, David was appointed to the Chair in Formulation Science where he works closely with the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership and their various industrial partners and collaborators on short and long term projects.
ECFP was founded in 2012 by academics from complex fluid research and since then, they have helped companies from all sectors relevant to formulation science, from multinational scale to start-ups.
ECFP website: https://www.edinburghcomplexfluids.com/
