Professor Rodney Townsend
Professor Rodney Townsend, RSC Director of Science and Technology |
To take a recent example, in June the RSC organised a Westminster Parliamentary "Links" day. The theme of the day was the globalisation of science and we were privileged to have Margaret Beckett, the UK Foreign Secretary, address us on this issue as well as on the importance of encouraging innovative science within the UK.
More recently still, the RSC's Council was invited to 10 Downing Street to meet the Minister for Energy, Malcolm Wicks, and discuss future priorities for sustainable energy.
The RSC has also been systematically and steadily building its activity in Brussels, both within the European Commission and the European Parliament. European activities matter as European legislation now has an over-riding importance in our daily lives. It is not only chemicals businesses that are affected by these regulatory pressures but also downstream businesses that depend on chemicals, leading all the way to the retailers and service industries which we all use.
The recently formed European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS) is a body which represents at least 40 separate national chemical societies. The RSC is strongly supporting EuCheMS which has already formulated a common policy position on the European Research Council. EuCheMS recently hosted a working lunch in Brussels to discuss this and other issues. The guest of honour was Jerzy Buzek, the former Polish Prime Minister and a member of the EU Parliament's committee on industry, research and energy.
It is already clear that neither MEPs nor the EU Commissioners want separate representations from all the nation-state chemical societies - but they will listen if we all speak together under EuCheMS. For the first time the profession of chemistry has a "European voice".
Furthermore, through the European research programme, Framework Programme 6 (FP6) a Sustainable Chemistry Technology Platform ("SusChem") has been funded to plan strategically for the future. The RSC, as a partner in this platform, has been working with colleagues across Europe to ensure continuing EU funding for the chemical sciences. As a result, within just the last year the RSC has been at the core of debates at the EU Parliament on subjects as diverse as green chemistry, nanotechnology, innovation, REACH and embryonic stem cell research.
The RSC has been focusing a lot of energy on its new international strategy, and rightly so, stretching as we now do, to China, India, South America and Africa. In this context, we no longer see Europe as "international" but very much our "home territory" - a big change in thinking!
Rodney Townsend, Director of Science & Technology, RSC
