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It is considered axiomatic—often wrongly—to say ‘They do it better over there’, there being the USA, it being technology or applied research on a large scale. Certainly they have more to do it with but this does not always explain or excuse those instances in which the deficit on our part is of organisation rather than capital expenditure. Corrosion research, the industrial application of its findings and educational schemes for producing more researchers can be taken as a case in point. It can hardly be disputed that research findings on corrosion and their industrial investment in the USA are disproportionately greater than those in this country. The size and ramifications of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers; the large‐scale investigations sponsored by Universities and other bodies and implemented by whole industries — such as the oil and gas complex (see Commentary for May and July this year); these are indicative of a healthy conviction existing in US industry and education that something must not only be done about it but must be done on an increasing scale.