The significance of the research programme "Inorganic chemistry and technology" for Slovenia is exhibited in development of independent, state-of-the-art technologies for the organisations and companies in Slovenia and thus increasing their competitive and technical self-confidence. The group is actively involved into a wide variety of educational programs, ranging from secondary school courses to post-graduate studies. Through these activities, the group contributes to the popularisation of science and to a rise of technical culture among the youth, at the same time raising high quality scientific and technical specialists. The group has been oriented towards solving problems of wastes generated in different branches of industry and towards development of clean and environmentally friendly technologies. The group offers the industry all the support in finding the solutions for technological and waste management problems. To mention an example, the developed flue gas desulphurisation technology for Rudnik Mežica MPI (the company uses lead containing wastes for recycling of lead) can optimally accommodate typical quick changes in input SO2 concentration from 0 up to 14,000 mg/m3, while maintaining the output concentration bellow 400 mg/m3. Beginning from an accurate knowledge of the process and using the developed non-stationary model, the group succeeded to produce a design for an energy efficient process and an intelligent automatic control algorithm. The next example is solving the technical problems of CO2 absorption in a coal mine. Due to the spatial and other technical reasons, the absorption regime was moved into the flooding area (very high liquid-to-gas ratio), considerably reducing the equipment dimensions at the same amount of used power. The operation of chemical process was maintained under supersaturated conditions of absorption product, resulting in a much higher transportation density of CO2. The applicative and development research has been always carried out for a known industrial customer (LEK, Atotech, Cinkarna, Salonit, RŽV, Vipap, Paloma, Adria Mobil, Prevent, Komunala Kranj). A partnership was established with Esotech Velenje, company for implementation of projects in energy sector and for environmental protection. The developed research and technological knowledge has been also used in different formal studies, analyses and reports connected to environmental impacts of different operations (environmental assessment analyses, implementation of environmental management systems etc.) In the field of risk management in the context of major accident prevention in the process industry we developed the "Professional opinion for Annex 1 of the Regulation on preparation and content of the emergency planning and disaster relief" in the year 2000 for the Ministry of Defence (MD). In 2001 we cooperated as experts under the PHARE project "Regional environmental awareness project (REAP) - Planning for Emergencies Involving Dangerous Substances for Slovenia", preparing a model study for execution of the EC directive 96/82 Seveso II for selected Slovene company and used by the Slovene Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (MESPE) and MD. In 2002/2003 we carried out the project "Comparative study of using different methods for preparation of environmental risk assessment in case of major accidents involving hazardous chemicals for different risk sources in Slovenia" in the frame of the "Slovene competitiveness 2001-2003" project commissioned by the MESPE and Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. Several risk management analyses and similar expert studies were carried out for industrial partners. We participated in EU projects for harmonisation of methods used for assessment of risk and comparative use in administrative procedures.