This proposal is focused on developing an understanding of how surfaces affect the local structure of synthetic polymers. There is considerable evidence for a strong variation in the local structure in nanocomposites. However, there has been no real attempt to quantify the structural effects. We have recently carried some experiments on GEM to exploit the particular advantages of neutron scattering to probe these effects; they were very successful. These novel experiments were based on deuterated atactic polystyrene with a high loading of silica and boehmite nanoparticles which results in all the material having a major exposure to a local surface. These experiments revealed significant variations in the local structure and we wish to explore this approach further with a wider range of samples with different molecular weights, nanoparticle size and composition.