There are a large number of applications in materials science that possess the general features and properties of the drug-receptor interaction that is at the center of the pharmaceutical sciences. Computer-assisted molecular design methods have been developed to analyse and extract information from a series of drug-candidates that bind to a common receptor These computational methods can be used to construct quantitative structure-activity relationships, QSARs. QSARs, in turn, can be used to probe drug-receptor mechanisms of action, and to perform virtual screening of virtual drug-candidates, which streamlines the drug discovery process. The question arises if QSAR methods can also be applied to materials science problems to construct quantitative structure-property relationships, QSPRs. One QSAR method, called receptor-independent 4D-QSAR analysis seems particularly well suited to develop QSPRs in materials science applications.