In 1993, he joined the group of prof. Bert Meijer as a lecturer and started his work on supramolecular polymers.

In 2002, he became senior lecturer, and in the same year he received a 'Pionier' grant to set up a research line in the area of ‘Functional Self-Assembled Polymers’. In 2006 he was appointed full professor. Visit the website .

In his research, Rint Sijbesma tries to bring together the fields of polymer science and supramolecular chemistry. In these efforts, the application of hydrogen bonding takes a central position. The design of synthetically accessible hydrogen bonding units has played an important role in the development in my group of ‘supramolecular polymers’, polymers in which the monomeric units are held together by non-covalent interactions. The ready availability of these hydrogen bonding units and their extremely high binding constants allows the study of many fundamental aspects of supramolecular polymers, as well as the development of this novel type of polymers as promising ‘smart’ materials with commercial applications, presently further developed by the startup company Suprapolix BV.

The potential of hydrogen bonding is also employed in thermoplastic elastomers with well-defined bisurea hard blocks. Attractive mechanical properties of these materials and the possibilities for molecular recognition are combined in a number of projects aimed at mechanical alignment of chromophores, immobilization of catalysts, and improved stamp materials for microcontact printing.

The use of mechanical forces in polymers to modify parameters such as catalytic activity or magnetic and optical properties is rapidly emerging as a promising new area of research. Presently, efforts are focusing on the use of ultrasound to break coordination polymers in a reversible manner, and on the use of thermoplastic elastomers. as the matrix for mechanically induced chemistry.