The project is a collaborative effort between the experimental group (COK-KULeuven) and the CMM (UGent) to understand the underlying mechanism of the formation of precursors and their aggregation for zeolites and microporous-mesoporous hybrid materials. The project has two fundamental goals: (1) improve the scientific understanding of the molecular aspects of zeolite synthesis processes via a combination of theoretical modeling and experimentation and (2) model based synthesis of new materials. The underlying scientific hypothesis is that the materials grow via aggregation of template-specific precursors and that the aggregation of the latter ultimately could be described in a way that synthesis of new silicate materials by design will become possible.