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RSC 2012 Roadmap Events
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Chemistry in the Olympics
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2012 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship
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Nominations for the 2012 Soft Matter Lectureship
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The RSC Bill Bryson Prize for Science Communication – open for entries worldwide
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RSC Corporate Partners
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Company Accreditation
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Deadlines for Local Section and Interest Group annual reports and accounts
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2012 Regional Meetings
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RSC Networks Blog
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RSC Events
Dear Member,
Welcome to the March edition of the Networks Newsletter.
RSC 2012 Roadmap Events
Following on from the ‘Chemistry for Tomorrows World’ lecture series in 2010, the RSC are launching a series of high profile
Roadmap events throughout 2012 focusing on the areas identified in our 2009 report
Chemistry for Tomorrow’s World: a roadmap for the chemical sciences. These events will bring together an audience of academics, industrial representatives and policy makers to engage in lively discussion focussing on the challenges facing our society and how chemists can tackle these issues.
The next event in the 2012 Roadmap series is the
Healthcare Innovations: ‘The Discovery of Brilinta – daring to be different’ lecture. Over the last 30 years, improvements in healthcare and technology have led to an increase in life expectancy and a general rise in the level of health. The UK has for decades been a world leader in medicines discovery and research. The Discovery of Brilinta is a unique example of drug discovery excellence and is a potential blockbuster for the treatment of antithrombotic conditions for use in reducing heart attacks and cardiovascular death.
Our keynote speaker, Dr John Dixon has 36 years experience in industrial Pharmaceutical Research & Development in several therapeutic areas, will outline aspects of the discovery of Brilinta. The nature of drug discovery is changing and is under considerable pressure due to escalating R&D costs and high drug discovery failure rates.
The RSC has organised this event to highlight the discovery of Brilinta and provide a forum for discussion for anyone who has an interest in the future for UK drug discovery. If you are interested in attending this event please register
here. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
For more information about upcoming events visit the
Chemistry for Tomorrow’s World group on MyRSC.
Past Roadmap Events:
On the 16
th March we saw the launch of this year’s Roadmap Lecture series, which started with the
Future Cities Policy lecture at The Chemistry Centre, Burlington House. The event explored the concept of sustainability of a hypothetical city (as a ‘closed system’), including facts and figures and extrapolating this to consider predictions for the size of populations by 2050.
Dr Richard Miller (Head of Sustainability at the Technology Strategy Board) and
Professor AbuBakr S. Bahaj (Head of the Energy and Climate Change Division at the University of Southampton) both gave fantastic talks followed by a lively discussion. Click
here to watch the Future Cities Lecture on demand.
Chemistry in the Olympics - get schools involved!
We've just launched our
'Chemistry in the Olympics' website and global experiment.
The site went live earlier today, featuring information and data entry pages for our global experiment, and dozens of resources exploring chemistry in sport. The global experiment will test the effects of sports drinks on athletic performance and encourage participation in students of all ages. Children in school and at home are encouraged to take part, ideally before the start of this year's London Olympics!
Alistair Brownlee, twice world champion triathlete and former chemistry student, introduces our global experiment site and talks about the role chemistry played in his own education and how chemistry is vital to his sport.
Visit our Global Experiment page at
www.rsc.org/sport and get involved!
If you have any questions please feel free to contact Ruth Neale
nealer@rsc.org.
Announcing the 2012 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship – nominations are now open. The Lectureship honours a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the materials chemistry field. Read the criteria here and
nominate someone today.
Nominations now open for the 2012 Soft Matter Lectureship
Do you know someone who deserves recognition for their contribution to the soft matter field
? Nominations are currently being accepted for the 2012 Soft Matter Lectureship. This annual Lectureship was established by the journal in 2009 to honour a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field.
For more information click
here.
The RSC Bill Bryson Prize for Science Communication – open for entries worldwide
The RSC Bill Bryson Prize for Science Communication is designed to encourage and recognise clear science communication in schools and colleges.
The Bill Bryson Prize 2012 offers the chance to welcome the Olympics to the UK. In support of this major event the 2012 competition theme will be "Science and Sport”. The competition is open to students aged 5-18 anywhere in the world and entries can be submitted in all formats, from posters to power points to puzzles! The best entries from each category will receive a cash prize of £500 for their institution, and £100 for the winning students to share and will be awarded at a prize-giving ceremony in London.
The closing date for entries is 31 March 2012.
www.rsc.org/billbrysonprize
RSC Corporate Partners
The successful RSC Partnership Programme has now been developed into the RSC Corporate Partner Programme. This programme is open to organisations of any type across the world whether academic, educational, industrial, commercial or not-for -profit and offers a clear and public association with the RSC together with a range of benefits such as discounts on membership, reduced rates on advertising, special rates on use of the chemistry centre in London and discounts on journals. If the organisation you work for is already spending in excess of £3000 on journal subscriptions, membership, advertising etc it will be worth looking at the advantages of the RSC Corporate Partner Programme and the benefits of a very public association with the RSC.
For details see
www.rsc.org/partners
Company Accreditation
The RSC has for some years been successfully accrediting company training schemes and have recently added BP, UCB Pharma and Nucleargraduates to this list. These schemes offer the employee a 'fast-track' route to the professional award of Chartered Chemist (CChem) while providing employers with the confidence that their training is of a recognised high standard.
One of the major advantages of having a training scheme accredited is that employees can participate in a company training scheme and at the same time work towards the widely recognised professional qualification of Chartered Chemist.
Advantages to the employer include:
Aiding the recruitment and retention of high quality employees
Cost efficient use of training resources - graduate trainees can be involved and meet as a group for some parts of the scheme
Assurance that the outcomes of the training scheme meet the RSC's professional requirements for the award of CChem
Assurance that the company's scheme stands comparison with good practice elsewhere.
Advantages to the employees are that they are part of a group with common aims and interest, they receive continuous monitoring and support from the company through an experienced colleague who acts as a mentor, and they can advance to CChem in the shortest possible time. That is, CChem can be achieved after 4 years rather than the 5 years required through the RSC's normal application procedure.
The advantages to the RSC include the ability to set, monitor and maintain the professional standards for the award of CChem, and to gain a better understanding of the needs of employing organisations.
If you think your company may be interested in accreditation, please contact the RSC’s Professional Standards Specialist, Sarah Harrison:
harrisons@rsc.org
Local Sections and Interest Groups
2012 Regional Meetings
This year’s series of Regional Meetings is now complete. A presentation of the main RSC activities over the last year and information about RSC strategy for 2012 and beyond was delivered, by a different member of RSC Council in each of the 9 regions across the UK and Ireland. Members in attendance were invited to provide feedback and make suggestions for future strategic direction and some lively and thought provoking discussions ensued. For more information and to view the notes from the meetings visit the
website or view the
MyRSC group.
Late submission of 2011 Annual Reports
The template for the 2011 annual reports, to be completed by all RSC member groups, has been sent to all RSC Local Section and Interest Group Secretaries. The purpose of these reports is to ensure that RSC staff are up to date with all member activities and to identify opportunities for us to better support RSC Groups in the future. The form is also available to download from the RSC
website.
The deadline for completed reports was
20th February 2012. Reports outstanding should be sent to
networks@rsc.org. If you have any questions about completing the report please do not hesitate to get in touch.
RSC Networks Blog
The RSC member services team will be updating the
Networks blog each month with reports and summaries of the activities of the various Networks. Any RSC Section or Group wishing to have something added to this blog should email their request to
networks@rsc.org
RSC Events Deadlines
Major deadlines coming up – check out the individual websites for more details and all the key dates.
The next event in the 2012 Roadmap series is the Healthcare Innovations: ‘The Discovery of Brilinta – daring to be different’ lecture. Over the last 30 years, improvements in healthcare and technology have led to an increase in life expectancy and a general rise in the level of health. The UK has for decades been a world leader in medicines discovery and research. The Discovery of Brilinta is a unique example of drug discovery excellence and is a potential blockbuster for the treatment of antithrombotic conditions for use in reducing heart attacks and cardiovascular death.
On the 16th March we saw the launch of this year’s Roadmap Lecture series, which started with the Future Cities Policy lecture at The Chemistry Centre, Burlington House. The event explored the concept of sustainability of a hypothetical city (as a ‘closed system’), including facts and figures and extrapolating this to consider predictions for the size of populations by 2050. Dr Richard Miller (Head of Sustainability at the Technology Strategy Board) and Professor AbuBakr S. Bahaj (Head of the Energy and Climate Change Division at the University of Southampton) both gave fantastic talks followed by a lively discussion. Click here to watch the Future Cities Lecture on demand.
Practical Applications of Modern Tools in Organic Synthesis and Purifications
Challenges in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology (ISACS7)
Challenges in Nanoscience (ISACS9)
