EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
1.0 Table of Contents 8
2.0 Background to the Review
9
2.1 Terms of Reference
9
3.0 Introduction
11
4.0 Acknowledgements
15
5.0 Panel Responses to the “Framework and Subsidiary Questions”
16
5.A. What is the impact on a global scale of the UK Chemistry research community both in terms of research quality and the profile of researchers? 17
5.B To what extent are UK researchers engaged in “best with best” science-driven international interactions?
24
5.C What evidence is there to support the existence of a creative and adventurous research base and portfolio? 25
5.D To what extent is the UK chemistry community addressing key technological/societal challenges through engaging in new research opportunities? 27
5.E To what extent is the chemistry research base contributing to other disciplines and multidisciplinary research? 28
5.F What is the level of knowledge exchange between the research base and industry that is of benefit to both sides? 29
5.G To what extent is the UK Chemistry research activity focussed to benefit the UK economy and global competitiveness? 31
5.H To what extent is the UK able to attract talented young scientists and engineers into chemistry research? Is there evidence that they are being nurtured and supported at every stage of their career? 32
5.I. Other observations and recommendations
35
6.0 Overall Recommendations 40
7.0 Concluding Remarks 47
Glossary of Abbreviations 49
Annex A: The International Review of Chemistry: Evidence Framework. Questions and Subsidiary questions 50
Annex B: Brief Biographies of Panel Members 53
Annex C: International Review of Chemistry – Review Week Itinerary 65
Annex D: Supporting Evidence and Information Provided 66
Annex E: Grand Challenges 70
Annex F: Summary of all Recommendations 71
Annex G: Steering Committee Membership and Role 75
2.0 Background to the Review
EPSRC holds regular international reviews to inform itself and the community (including stakeholders, industrial bodies, learned societies, academia and government departments) about the quality and impact of the UK science base compared to the rest of the world and to highlight any gaps or missed opportunities. Each international review provides a broad perspective on the research activity in a particular discipline in the UK, and is undertaken with the relevant learned institutions and other research councils as appropriate; it is a rolling programme in which the research base in each discipline is reviewed approximately every five years. Twelve reviews have been conducted since 1999.
This 2009 International Review of UK Chemistry Research has focused on the discipline of chemistry as a whole: chemistry research in chemistry and other departments. The previous review in this subject area, entitled, “Chemistry at the Centre: An International Assessment of University Research in Chemistry in the UK” was carried out in 2002 by a panel chaired by George Whitesides. The present review panel was selected in consultation with the Steering Committee, chaired by Professor Jim Feast, FRS, with members chosen for the breadth and depth of their expertise. Three of the panellists also served on the previous Review.
The purpose of the review is to benchmark Chemistry in the UK against the rest of the world. It covers research excellence, knowledge exchange, people and research infrastructure; the focus has been primarily on research and training in UK universities (and appropriate institutes), but the review has taken account of activities elsewhere in the context of knowledge exchange. Other EPSRC international reviews have been taken into account where relevant. Although most of the activity covered falls within EPSRC’s remit the review has also encompassed areas such as atmospheric chemistry (in NERC’s remit), biological chemistry including biomolecular sciences (in BBSRC’s remit), and medicinal chemistry (in MRC’s remit), and astrochemistry and other aspects of chemistry in STFC’s remit.
The role of the UK Steering Committee was to oversee the review and as stakeholders to act as a proxy for the community. The Steering Committee advised on issues of timing, panel membership, including the chair, locations to be visited and the provision of evidence. At the end of the week, representatives of the Steering Committee met the panel to hear and discuss their preliminary findings and recommendations. Members of the Steering Committee briefed the panel at the beginning of the review to remind them of the UK context.
The terms of reference for the International Review were to:
-
Assess and compare the quality of the UK research base in Chemistry with the rest of the world.
-
Assess the impact of the research base activities in chemistry internationally and on other disciplines nationally, on wealth creation and on quality of life and prepare recommendations.
-
Comment on progress since the 2002 Review; comment on any changes affecting the recommendations.
-
Present findings and recommendations to the research community and councils.
The Panel’s aim was not to assess the quality of individual groups or universities but to give a view on the quality and international standing of chemistry research in the UK as a whole. The panel was encouraged to indicate the relative strengths of areas within chemistry and to assess “overall standing and quality of chemistry research in the UK from an international perspective” and indicate “where action is required, and recommendations to improve the UK’s position over the coming decade.”
3.0 Introduction
During the week starting Sunday, 19th April, 2009 an International Panel consisting of 18 scientists and engineers came together in Manchester, England, for the purpose of assessing the quality and impact of academic chemistry research in the United Kingdom (UK). After an organisation meeting on Sunday, the Panel divided into sub-panels, each of which visited a separate set of venues during the ensuing Monday to Thursday.
The focus of the assessment was centred on, but not limited to, eight Framework Questions. These top level questions are common to the assessments that will be or have been performed by all the International Review Panels. In the case of the Chemistry Review, the Steering Committee modified a series of questions subsidiary to each of the top level Framework Questions. These questions including the subsidiary questions are found in Annex A. They are also repeated piecewise in the next section of this report that summarises the International Review of Chemistry (IRC) Panel’s findings. Given the task at hand and the time available, a realistic assessment would have been very difficult without the commonality of inquiry that the questions provided. Many of these Framework Questions addressed issues that extended beyond the normal inquiry of quality and focus of research. Consequently, the scope of the Review was considerably broader. It also became clear as the week progressed that some of the issues identified by the Steering Committee and posed as subsidiary questions were not the types of issues that academics regularly ponder. In part, this accounts for the uneven responses that were provided at different venues and by different universities.
This review in 2009 is a sequel to the last International Review (the ‘Whitesides’ Review) in 2002. It follows the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) carried out in 2008. In brief, the RAE 2008 Unit of Assessment 18: Chemistry sub-panel reported that UK chemistry remains buoyant and internationally competitive, with a shift towards a more international quality of research since the previous RAE in 2001; an advance enabled in part by increased investment in infrastructure through Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF), Strategic Research Infrastructure Fund (SRIF) and Capital Investment Framework (CIF). The RAE found approximately 15% of all outputs to be world-leading. The high calibre of the UK Chemistry community was attributed in part to continued strength in core disciplines. Since 2001, substantial numbers of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) have been appointed. Concerns were expressed that current funding regimes may not provide adequate support for their research careers to prosper. Good evidence was found of engagement of chemistry with local, national and international industry through spin-out and licensing activity and collaborative grants. However, a need to develop a new way of working with chemical industries and downstream businesses was noted; as was the insufficient engagement with the public in science education. We will see that many of these findings resonate with the conclusions of the present International Review. Overall, chemical research in the UK has improved from the base in 2001/2002, both as measured by quantitative assessment of the RAE 2008 report as well as qualitative assessment by the present International Panel.
Caution: The International Panel has done its best to assess the evidence, analyse, report and prioritise its findings and be above prejudice. Alas, we are but human (and exhausted!). Chair takes responsibility and apologises in advance for any misinterpretations, the propagation of any false perceptions and factual errors that may have inadvertently made their way into its conclusions.
The International Panel
The panel members, their home institution or company, their country of domicile and their technical speciality are shown in Table 1. Brief biographies of the panel members are found in Annex B.
Table 1: Composition of International Review Team #
Name
|
Institution
|
Expertise
|
Country
|
Professor Magid Abou-Gharbia
|
Temple University
|
Medicinal Chemistry
|
USA
|
Professor Anna Balazs*
|
University of Pittsburgh
|
Theory and Modelling of Polymers
|
USA
|
Professor Erick Carreira*
|
ETH Zurich
|
Organic Synthesis
|
Switzerland
|
Professor Sylvia Ceyer
|
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
|
Physical Chemistry and Surface Science
|
USA
|
Professor Vicki Colvin
|
Rice University
|
Nanotechnology
|
USA
|
Professor Graham Fleming
|
University of California, Berkeley
|
Physical Chemistry and Chemical Biology
|
USA
|
Professor Peter Ford
|
University of California, Santa Barbara
|
Inorganic Chemistry
|
USA
|
Dr Henrik Hahn
|
Evonic Litarion GmbH
|
Electrochemistry
|
Germany
|
Professor Andrew Holmes
|
University of Melbourne
|
Synthetic and Materials Chemistry
|
Australia
|
Professor Mike Klein (Chair)*
|
University of Pennsylvania
|
Computational Chemistry
|
USA
|
Professor Goverdhan Mehta
|
Indian Institute of Science
|
Organic Synthesis
|
India
|
Professor Egbert Meijer
|
Eindhoven University of Technology
|
Supramolecular Chemistry
|
The Netherlands
|
Professor Gerard Meijer
|
Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
|
Chemical Physics
|
Germany
|
Professor Helmuth Möhwald
|
Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces
|
Colloids and Interface Science
|
Germany
|
Professor Michele Parrinello
|
ETH Zurich
USI-campus Lugano
|
Theoretical Chemistry
|
Switzerland
|
Professor Bernard Raveau
|
CNRS/ University of Caen
|
Materials Chemistry and Physics
|
France
|
Professor Giacinto Scoles
|
Elettra Sincrotrone
|
Nanotechnology and Physical Chemistry
|
Italy
|
Professor Jim Wells
|
University of California, San Francisco
|
Biological Chemistry
|
USA
|
# USA = 8, Germany = 3, Switzerland = 2, Australia, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands =1
* Member of the ‘Whitesides’ Panel: International Review 2002
During the ensuing four days the Panel had the opportunity to visit nine venues and meet with faculty and researchers from 22 universities. This was possible because several institutions often shared a venue. Without such sharing the extent of coverage of the institutions would have been considerably less. The details of the itinerary for the week including the venues and the universities present at each one are found in Annex C. In addition, individuals from companies involved with the universities as research collaborators were present at each venue. Given the nature of some of the framework questions, the presence of these private sector representatives proved invaluable.
As mentioned earlier, in order to accomplish such a broad coverage of these university research programmes in the course of four days, it was necessary to divide the Panel into two sub-panels. The composition of the sub-panels for the various venues also can be found in Annex C.
Each university or group of universities was permitted by the EPSRC to decide the most effective way to showcase their achievements and a suggested overview timetable was provided to facilitate planning; however the framework questions (Annex A) were provided in advance by the EPSRC together with the request that these should be the centrepiece of the discussions. The universities were also invited to attend a briefing day, which focussed on the logistics of the visits and further developing their ideas for sessions. The responsiveness of the various institutions to this guidance was successful in that the panel had consistency of presentations and were able to effectively engage with leading researchers and obtain an appreciation of the situation at each of the different universities.
Because the task of the panel was to gather data related to the Framework Questions at each venue and to re-assemble this data into a broader picture, there will be no institutional attribution mentioned in this report. There was at least one EPSRC staff member present at each venue and they can provide attribution as deemed appropriate by the EPSRC. It is hoped that, at a minimum, institutional “Best Practices” will be identified and propagated across the university community for the betterment of the overall UK programme. Many of the Best Practices are not chemistry specific and can be adopted by other disciplines as well. Conversely, there may be other disciplines that are leading the way in some of the areas covered by the Framework Questions and it is hoped that the results of other disciplinary reviews will enable transfer of these Best Practices to the chemistry research community as well.
Share with your friends: |
