This paper is the result of a plenary discussion session held at the 11(th) European Conference on Mixing. Three perspectives on mixing research are explored: that of the industrialist, the equipment manufacturer, and the academic researcher. There was strong agreement that, while the one dimensional problems are reasonably well understood and many engineers thus perceive that mixing is simple, current practice actually requires us to address complex, multi-dimensional problems with interactions between mixing, reaction, multi-phase physics, surface phenomena, and transport phenomena. Understanding these multi-scale, multi-mechanism problems requires models which include interactions between the phenomena, and allow the effects of these interactions to emerge. Developing these models will require us to shift our perspective on mixing from one of equipment design to one of the mixing field as a fundamental physical mechanism.