The Biennial Pacific Polymer Conference is the official conference co-hosted by the Pacific Polymer Federation (PPF) and the polymer organization of the host country. The 8th Pacific Polymer conference (PPC-8) was a tremendous success in the city of Bangkok during November 24 to 27, 2003 both in terms of the number of scientific contributions of around 440 contributions, including both oral and poster presentations, and the number of international participants of around 350 from 31 countries. The contributions published in this special volume represent the quality and scientific merit of all the contributions to the PPC-8. These contributions cover diverse disciplines in modern polymer science, such as hydrogels, functional and synthetic polymers, natural and green polymers, polymer blends and composites, polymer colloids and interfaces, polymer engineering, processing, and characterization, and elastomers and rubbers.