ScotCHEM – a collaborative venture for pooling resources for chemistry research in Scotland – was officially launched at a prestigious event that brought together a host of eminent chemists at the Royal Museum, Edinburgh, on 14 September. Professor Ken McKendrick, chairman of the ScotCHEM advisory group, explained to an audience of ca 200 people from across the UK that ScotCHEM embraces three separately funded initiatives that will ‘interact with each other to the mutual benefit of all’. They are WestCHEM, which comprises Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities; EaStCHEM, which brings together Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities; and Heriot-Watt University. For WestCHEM and EaStCHEM, the ‘pairing’ of two HEIs within these initiatives is at a level of integration of the administration and management structures for research. There will be a single staff structure, each with one research director, a research committee, and members of staff within each pairing operating as if they were part of a single organisation.

Funding 

Funded to the tune of £9m by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) as a one off investment for four years, along with £4.6m from the Office of Science and Technology (OST), and £9.7m from the five universities, the ScotCHEM partners will allow unrestricted access to each other’s research facilities and major pieces of equipment, as well as access to any specialist technical expertise for operating these facilities that exists in the different institutions. And while the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee are neither receiving funding, nor putting monies into the scheme, as participating partners, they too are set to benefit from ScotCHEM’s unrestricted access to the research facilities at each institution. 

The £23m will be used by the five universities to hire new staff and invest in infrastructure, specifically new laboratories and equipment. How the monies will be distributed among the initiatives was laid down from the start. Essentially it comes down to six new chairs for WestCHEM (three to each university); four new chairs for EaStCHEM (two to each university); and two new chairs, plus a readership and a lectureship for Heriot-Watt University. Additional research studentships will also be funded. 

According to McKendrick, another benefit of research pooling is the intention to develop postgraduate networking. ‘We are committed to making better joint use of graduate-level activities – ie access to postgraduate training, summer schools, and opportunities for ‘peer exposure’ between students from the different institutions’, he told Education in Chemistry. 

A ‘bottom up’ idea 

The roots of ScotCHEM can be traced back to the ‘synergy agreement’ of about five years ago between the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde. This aimed to encourage collaboration in research activities, not just in chemistry, but across all departments, where possible. Although its initial bid for funding through the OST merger fund wasn’t successful, the idea got a lot of people in the universities talking, and importantly SHEFC became interested. 

Professor David Gani, director of the research policy and strategy directorate at SHEFC, speaking at the launch, explained that following the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2001, SHEFC carried out an analysis of the research performance of Scottish universities across the breadth of the research base. One of the most stark results, he said, was that there were no 5* departments in the physical sciences, specifically in chemistry and physics. SHEFC decided that a strategy was necessary to address the problem on a national level, and so began to promote the idea of ‘research pooling’ to the academic community. There followed a series of meetings at which various models were discussed. 

The current model for chemistry is unique to chemistry; physics has a different model though the concept is the same. A clear decision was made in the early stages that such collaborations would not involve undergraduate students. McKendrick explained, ‘Essentially, the distinction was made that, in research, we felt that we all had something to gain by collaborating, that we could all do better by pooling our resources. But if we merged our undergraduate provision we would run the risk of losing our market share because we would lose our identities, and end up with fewer students. Any improvement to our research base would also have a positive effect on student numbers. We all believe in the need to teach undergraduate chemistry in a research-intensive environment. A degree in chemistry should involve proper exposure to genuine, world-leading, internationally competitive research’. 

Gani summed up the Council’s philosophy. ‘SHEFC’, he said, ‘wants to support the best researchers regardless of where they are located and pooling will bring together all researchers who are capable of performing at an internationally competitive level without physically moving them around and concentrating them in any one physical location. Concentrating research in specific HEIs in Scotland is not a solution for Scotland, we want to support excellence wherever it is and have it led by the highest quality leadership’. 

The launch was sponsored by SHEFC, Scottish Enterprise, Organon, Lilly, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Rodney Townsend, RSC science and technology director, speaking at the event said the RSC welcomed the ScotCHEM initiative. ‘ScotCHEM is an excellent example of how Scotland has responded to the international challenges facing UK chemistry today and will help ensure the future of the discipline’, he said. ‘I hope’, he added, ‘that in partnership with other funding councils similar schemes can be built in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and thus develop a national strategy for research at governmental level for the UK’. 

At a time when universities cannot take for granted that there is a future for chemistry and that people are going to invest substantial resources in the subject, chemists took the opportunity at the meeting to explain some of the challenges still facing this ‘lively and vibrant subject’ – in catalysis, polymers, nanoparticles, and proteins for starters. Kathryn Roberts