The exciting results from the UK-wide Research Assessment Exercise clearly show that chemistry research in the city of Glasgow is flourishing!
WestCHEM (external link), the joint research school formed by Strathclyde and Glasgow Universities as part of the Scottish pooling initiative, has been a phenomenal success in advancing chemistry research in the West of Scotland.
The improvement in performance from the last RAE in 2001 has been dramatic, with an unparalleled rise up the rankings reflecting the position of WestCHEM as a world respected research school, now ranked in the top 15 in the UK by GPA and when the quality relative to numbers of staff returned is taken into account (the power weighting) then WestCHEM is ranked 8th.
70% of the researchers in WestCHEM were rated at 3* or above indicating the international leadership and quality of our research portfolio.
Substantial investment in world-class researchers and top quality equipment and facilities has been crucial in achieving this success.
Both Universities are strongly committed to the pioneering research school and believe it will continue to enhance its position on the world stage following the highly encouraging outcome of the RAE.
WestCHEM Achievements since 2001
Notable highlights for WestCHEM over the last seven years include:
- The election as FRS of two WestCHEM members of longstanding (Professor Laurance D Barron FRS (external link) and Professor David C Sherrington FRS) for pioneering work in their respective fields of spectroscopy and polymers
- Numerous individual awards to staff for highly significant breakthroughs in their respective areas
- WestCHEM being the largest current publisher of chemical research in Scotland per head returned in the RAE, attracting increasingly large numbers of citations
- A unique position in terms of winning capability building awards in chemistry from the main funding bodies (including EPSRC, SFC, CRUK) to the tune of £10M
- Actively promoting interdisciplinary research taking chemistry and its central position within the sciences into other fields including materials, engineering, life sciences and medicine
- Demonstration of this interdisciplinarity by the award of Young Life Scientist of the Year to two of its members.
The RAE success is testament to the hard work of many in WestCHEM and its leadership from within the partner Departments.
Current Director Professor Chick Wilson (external link) commented
This is a fantastic result for WestCHEM and we are overjoyed that the research excellence of Chemistry in the West of Scotland has been recognised through review by our peers.
The successful outcome reflects outstanding leadership within WestCHEM since its inception, and the work of my predecessor John Murphy in heading this submission to RAE2008 as Director.
We look forward to building on this success in partnership with our Universities, whose support in making WestCHEM a success has been invaluable.
We are proud to be part of such a successful Chemistry Research School.
Deputy Director Professor Duncan Graham added,
This is a phenomenal result for WestCHEM; our rise up the rankings is little less than meteoric in such a competitive environment and we look forward to WestCHEM becoming the premier chemical research school in a range of our areas of strength.
We eagerly await the introduction of the Research Excellence Framework to help benchmark our continuing achievements and are aiming high in terms of international competitiveness.
WestCHEM
The WestCHEM Research School brings together the strengths of the two major chemistry research schools in the West of Scotland, to offer an outstanding facility for world-leading research in a large, diverse and expanding chemistry research environment.
Established in July 2005, and funded under a Scottish Funding Council initiative supported by the partner Universities, the School absorbs the research activities of the Departments of Chemistry at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, in the city of Glasgow.
It provides the vehicle for a sustainable internationally excellent Research School in Chemical Sciences, and operates both in the core areas of Chemistry and at interfaces with biological, medicinal, physical and materials sciences; one early success of the School is the recent funding of a £4.4M national Centre for Physical Organic Chemistry, a partnership of WestCHEM with the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences.
The WestCHEM Research School encompasses a critical mass of academic researchers in the partner Departments; this critical mass allows WestCHEM to encompass the full range of contemporary chemical research.
The WestCHEM graduate School currently comprises more than 220 PhD research students, reflecting the vibrancy of our research environment.
The WestCHEM investment has helped provide state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities, as well as allowing the recruitment of world-leading academics into the Chair positions created as part of the pooling initiative.
The Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow continue to support WestCHEM strongly in pursuit of its mission of international excellence in chemical research.
Current capital investments totalling around £5M underpin this support and offer the continued development of infrastructure within which this academic research excellence, evidenced by the RAE outcome, can continue to thrive.