Connecting early career chemists
175 minutes for chemistry
Research fellow at the University of Strathclyde, Thomas McGlone chaired the organising committee for our Early Career Symposium (ECS) 2016. He tells us about his wider involvement with our Early Career Network, the benefits of engaging with other early career chemists across the world, and how he has enjoyed spending much more than 175 minutes this year, bringing the hugely successful ECS2016 to Strathclyde.
My first real involvement with the ECN was becoming elected as Early Career Representative on the Scottish Regional Steering Group in June 2012. This involved supporting existing events in the region in addition to forming links with the other Early Career Representatives throughout the UK.
I was then fortunate to be selected as an early career representative for the UK (together with Laura Yates from the East Midlands Section) and attend the European Young Chemists Network (EYCN) Delegates Assembly in Bucharest, Romania in April 2014. In addition to being a wonderful experience personally, where I established many life-long friendships, it was great to meet and network with so many like-minded early career chemists from around Europe and beyond.
Then, highly confident in my ability to network with chemists from around the world, in 2015, I was happy to accept an invitation to attend a research exchange workshop, jointly sponsored by the British Council and the Royal Society of Chemistry, in Novosibirsk, Siberia. I realised that, despite being separated by a distance of over 4000 miles and a wealth of fascinating culture, we as chemists shared a remarkable common bond. We wanted to advance our knowledge, we wanted to improve life quality and we wanted to develop technology. Chemistry is an excellent tool to help us in these exciting challenges.
I was subsequently successful in an application for the Young Chemists Crossing Borders Scheme (YCCB), co-organised by the EYCN and the American Chemical Society Younger Chemists Committee (ACS-YCC). From 50 final round applications from across Europe, six places were awarded on the scheme, which involved a series of events with the ACS-YCC and presenting at the 250th national ACS meeting in Boston in August 2015.
Additional highlights included personalised tours of the universities of Harvard and MIT, as well as an industry visit to the local Genzyme plant. The experience was rounded off nicely with a New England Clambake Dinner (sponsored by the RSC) at Cape Cod. I was able to grow my network of early career chemists to a global scale and establish further close friendships, many of which, I am happy to confirm, still stand today.
I continued to support the EYCN and attended the Delegates Assembly for a second time in April 2016, in Guimarães, Portugal, along with Sarah Newton from the Birmingham & West Midlands Local Section. Having become a confident member of the EYCN, I participated keenly in their activities, which included organising a satellite programme of events for a symposium by the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS), coordinating international competitions such as ‘Fotoquímica’, and continuing to support the growth of their wonderful network.
My attendance at the third UK Early Career Symposium in Birmingham, June 2014, led to my nomination as chair for the organisation of the fourth event, which I brought to Strathclyde University, Scotland, in June, 2016. Together with well-seasoned committee members Laura Yates and David Foley (Tayside Local Section) we assembled a team of new members including Paul Brack and Nitika Bhalla (East Midlands Local Section), Sian Sloan-Dennison and Alexandre Girard (Glasgow & the West Local Section), Scott Sneddon (Tayside Local Section) and Olajide Onike (Chilterns & Middlesex Local Section).
The Early Career Symposium was first set up in 2010 by a group of enthusiastic early career chemists who wanted to provide a platform for individuals across academia and industry to network. Their aim was to bring together local communities and give early career researchers the opportunity to present their work in a slightly less formal environment. In the ca. two year time period leading up to ECS2016, our committee communicated on a monthly basis via Skype. The major tasks involved were based around sourcing funding and exhibitors and inviting speakers. We also decided to expand the traditional one day event to two days, in order to include a social event in between.
ECS2016 proved to be the most successful event to date with around 170 delegates attending, £15,000 of funding raised and a hugely successful social event in the form of a science ceilidh with Lewis Hou and his band.
Plenary sessions from Dominic Tildesley (the RSC president at the time) and the UK Apprentice winner and co-founder of Hyper Recruitment Solutions, Ricky Martin, provided a highly professional basis for the event. Delegate and abstract speaker attendance was hugely diverse, both in terms of geography and an academic–industrial presence. We also had international representation with the attendance of EYCN member Menno de Waal, from the Netherlands, who received a special introduction from EuCheMS President, David Cole-Hamilton.
The actual 12 hours or so of live conference time definitely exceeded 175 minutes and, considering the adjacent planning leading up to the event, in addition to subsequent closing tasks, we were well over our quota! However, there was never any doubt from the committee members that our hard work more than paid off, following our observations of the success of ECS2016. I’m sure they would not hesitate to agree that if we could go back, we would do it all again. At least a few of us plan to be involved in ECS2018 and I, for one, can’t wait to get stuck in again.
175 minutes for chemistry
As the oldest chemical society in the world, we celebrated our 175th anniversary in 2016. We wanted to mark this milestone by recognising the important contributions our community makes to the chemical sciences. We asked our members and supporters to dedicate 175 minutes to chemistry in 2016 and share their stories with us. We featured these stories throughout the year on our website, in print in RSC News, and on social media using #time4chem.
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If you've been involved in an event or activity, or just have an interesting story to tell, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch using the online form or tweet us @RoySocChem using #time4chem.
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