Professor Alan Atkinson's research is mainly concerned with the science and technology of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) and the components and materials they are made from. A major activity forms part of the Supergen consortium "Fuel Cells: Powering a Greener Future". The emphasis here is on the processing by constrained sintering of electrolytes for SOFCs and the mechanical properties of the porous electrodes. Other aspects are addressed within two EU consortium projects concerned with understanding and reducing the operating degradation of SOFCs in order to meet the long lifetimes required for commercialisation. In "SOFC-Life" our focus is on coarsening of the microstructure of the porous electrodes and in "PROSOFC" we concentrate on mechanical degradation.