Community based barriers to the wider acceptance of Solid State NMR

During August 2015, the author surveyed 76 solid state NMR scientists from materials science to biology, academic to industrial, based in North America, Europe, India, China, Japan and Australia. The subject concerned barriers to the wider acceptance of solid state NMR and included the various barriers based on experimental, funding, vendor based and community aspects. This survey was confidential. However, many of the survey participants requested that at least the results of the part of the survey relevant to our community be made public. This was agreed by the commissioner of the survey and these findings were presented at the 'Developments and Applications of Solid State NMR', Varna, Bulgaria during May 2016. Following the resultant discussion, members of the conference requested that the author publish these findings. These findings are a collection of the opinions of the survey participants and include additional anecdotes from the author, with the intention of stimulating a community debate to ensure that a subject we all have close to our hearts; solid state NMR continues to thrive moving forwards.