Cooper is distinguished for his outstanding and broad contributions to the design-based discovery of a range of functional materials encompassing polymers prepared using supercritical fluid solvents, templated structures, nanoparticles, and porous solids. In particular, his innovative work has introduced new classes of materials such as porous organic polymers with extended conjugation, and molecular organic crystals with high levels of porosity, which have changed the perception of what is possible in this field. In collaboration with computational chemists, he has developed strategies for the supramolecular synthesis of functional molecular crystals in a more designed way.