Archive for the ‘UK’ Category

Nominations for the 2025 RSC Prizes are Now Open

31 Oct 2024

Each year, the RSC recognizes outstanding members of the chemical community through the RSC Prizes, which distinguish exceptional groups, teams, and individuals for a variety of accomplishments. While some prizes are limited to those living in the UK or Ireland, there are over 20 prizes open to those elsewhere in the world.

Nominations are now open for the 2025 RSC Prizes, and will close 17:00 GMT (12:00 EST) on Tuesday, January 14th, 2025.

To highlight three categories of prizes:

Horizon Prizes: recognize a group, team or collaboration who are opening up new directions and possibilities in their field, making discoveries and innovations that push the boundaries of science. Teams can be any size, from a small research group to a multi-institution, multi-national collaboration, and self-nomination is permitted.
Research & Innovation Prizes: recognize exceptional individuals who are advancing the chemical sciences, working in academia and industry. We have open prizes with no career-related eligibility criteria in multiple scientific fields. Alongside this we also have the Centenary Prizes for Chemistry and Communication (up to 3 prizes available), which recognize outstanding scientists who are also exceptional communicators.
Inclusion & Diversity Prize: recognises team or individual whose work is has had impact in improving the accessibility, inclusivity, and diversity of the chemical science community

Click here to search the 2025 RSC Prizes open for nominations outside of the UK and Ireland, and if you would like more information see the Guidance for Nominators and our FAQ.

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Materials Horizons 2023 Outstanding Paper Awards

15 May 2024

Recently, Materials Horizons announced the winners of their 2023 Outstanding Paper awards, recognizing several articles published in 2023 that were exceptionally high quality and innovative. These articles were chosen by the journal’s Editorial and Advisory Boards from a shortlist of articles based on a variety of metrics including article downloads, Altmetrics, and citations. Each year, these awards highlight the 2023 Outstanding Article, Outstanding Article Runner-Up, and Outstanding Review.

We would especially like to highlight the Materials Horizons 2023 Outstanding Review, which was awarded to Jackie Zheng, Md Arifuzzaman, Xiaomin Tang, Xi Chelsea Chen, and Tomonori Saito from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for their article summarizing the current state of the plastic recycling sector.

Click here to read the introductory editorial detailing each of the winning papers, and congratulations to all the recognized authors!

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2024 Catalysis Science & Technology Symposium – Attend In Person or Virtually

08 Dec 2023

Registration is now open for the upcoming 2024 Catalysis Science & Technology Symposium, on April 3rd, 2024. This one-day hybrid event will be held both in person and virtually in Burlington House in London, and will feature speakers from across the many areas of catalysis, highlight several RSC Editorial Board members and a number of outstanding early career researchers.

The event will feature invited research talks, including Catalysis Science & Technology Associate Editor Will Medlin (University of Colorado Boulder), as well as many other impactful speakers (and more to be announced soon). The program also includes a poster session, for which submissions are now open.

To find out more information about the symposium, the speakers, early bird registration, and more, click here to view the RSC Events page.

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Recognizing the Brazilian Chemistry Community

15 Aug 2019

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Brazilian Connections

While many people can properly guess that the Royal Society of Chemistry originated in the UK, they may not be aware of just how far we’ve come, literally, since our British beginnings in 1841. Over 175 years later, we have offices around the world, including one in beautiful São Paulo, the most populous city in Brazil and in the Southern Hemisphere. The city has one of the most vibrant and thriving economies in Latin America, but even though the country has seen growth in the science and engineering research sector over the last decade, times are hard right now for academics in Brazil. In the spirit of internationalization, our office in Brazil has been working hard to promote the science that is being accomplished here to our colleagues around the world.

It certainly helps that we’re located next to the Science and Innovation Network in Brazil, one of the British government’s strategic partnerships in 30 countries/territories, that aim to mutually benefit both the UK and host-country. Through the RSC’s physical presence in this partner nation, we can forge strong UK-Brazil interactions that support research and innovation for the whole world. We have been working with other partners to create networking opportunities that put researchers in the global spotlight, and lubricate the group gears in the search for solutions to global problems. It is a win-win situation. You interact more, you expose yourself, you embrace big problems and that helps push to solve local (and often critically necessary) ones.

One of our long-term Brazilian partners is Sociedade Brasileira de Química (SBQ), the Brazilian Chemical Society; as a not-for-profit organization like the RSC and as a scholarly and professional society, SBQ supports the chemical sciences in Brazil and even publishes its own Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society, which it makes freely available to read to advance science literacy. The RSC’s support of SBQ has been historical and since 2007 we have been taking part in the SBQ annual meeting.

The Brazilian Chemistry Certificate of Distinction

For 2019, the IYPT, apart from the splashing success of our IYPT lanyards, we decided to take a step forward and award the researchers who have been publishing with us in the last 2 years. As a publisher, we measure engagement by publication numbers. More importantly, we want to recognize engagement, and we hope this boosts publications further and leads to further engagement. As examples, we took part of some Newton Fund Brazil activities and also the Brazil-UK Year of Science and Innovation. We worked together with our recent partner, CNPq, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) – the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – which is a part of the Ministry of Science and Technology under the Brazilian federal government. Joining forces with CNPq, we put the new prize together: the Brazilian Chemistry Certificate of Distinction. The idea was to recognize researchers with outstanding publication records and give back the opportunity for networking, to help make the awardees gain further recognition and encourage the new ones in the game to look for opportunities.

During the 42th Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Chemical Society in Joiville last May, we presented the prize winners. During the honor ceremony we presented the two awardees. Firstly, representing Women in Chemistry, Prof Dirce Pozebon from UFGRS, was awarded. Prof Pozebon publshed 6 Articles in 2017-2018 which collectively received 39 citations. Prof Eufrânio N. Silva Jr from UFMG, was awarded after publishing 8 Articles in 2017-2018, which received 42 citations. He was not able to attend, but Prof Luis Claudio Barbosa from UFMG (one of our FRSC) represented him during the ceremony.

Prof Dirce Pozebon (3rd from the left) from UFRGS receiving her prize certificate from the hands of Prof Alsion Hulme (representing RSC), Prof Vanderlan Bolzani (representing the CNPq president João Luiz Filgueiras de Azevedo) and Prof Norberto Pereira Lopes (representing SBQ).

Prof Luiz Claudio Barbosa from UFMG receiving Prof Eufrânio´s prize certificate from the hands of Prof Alison Hulme (representing RSC), Prof Norberto Pereira Lopes (representing SBQ) and Prof Vanderlan Bolzani (representing the CNPq president João Luiz Filgueiras de Azevedo).

The selection guidelines for the Brazilian Chemistry Certificate of Distinction can be found here. This prize it will contribute to winners in their dual roles as the researcher and the professor, with the opportunity to travel abroad to attend an international conference and/or spend some short period interacting with fellow colleagues. The prize includes money towards accommodation and travel from both CNPq and RSC. The Certificate of Distinction shows our commitment to recognizing our interactions with our communities in Brazil. It gives concrete ideas for the future stakeholders who embrace internationalization and networking tools, in giving back to the academic society the knowledge that science, in the end, brings to our lives. A nation with no investment into the scientific community does not flourish, as no progress can be made in the right direction.The scientific production in Brazil needs to be recognized, and the quality of the work done here can make an impact – if only, with all the differences we face and discuss, it is put to the task to solve technological problems.

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An Intense Year of Chemical Science Activities in Brazil

03 Dec 2018

After the winter break in the Southern Hemisphere, Brazil’s position as a leader of science research was showcased, with several chemistry-related meetings happening all over the country. The focus areas ranged from CO₂ storage and utilization at the International Conference on Carbon Dioxide Utilization (ICCDU), molecular magnetism at the International Conference on Molecular-based Magnetism (ICMM), new and advanced analytical science at National Meeting on Analytical Chemistry (ENQA) and diverse aspects of inorganic chemistry at the Brazilian Meeting on Inorganic Chemistry (BMIC). These concentrated activities coincide with the Northern hemisphere summer break, making it possible for international speakers to come over and bring the right international flavor. Several engaged RSC authors and editors came and we were able to foster future collaborations. For the RSC, we are happy that the local community now easily recognizes our journals and we can show our commitment to increasing the submission and publication of high-quality work from the region.

The International Conference on Carbon Dioxide Utilization

UK-Brazil Year of Science and Innovation network reception at the British Council residence in Rio.

The ICCDU had partnered with the UK-Brazil Year of Science and Innovation, and so a UK delegation was deeply involved in several activities (Profs Michael North, Peter Styring, Katy Armstrong) as well as the Editor-in-Chief of Green Chemistry, Prof Philip Jessop. The event was included on the Year calendar web site. Above is a photo of the main networking event during the meeting, which brought together Brazilians and international researchers.

Poster prize winners at the 2018 ICCDU; pictured from left to right: Adriano H Braga (USP-Brazil), Juan Arturo Mendoza-Nieto (UNAM-Mexico) and Mathias Smialkowski (Ruhr-Universität Bochum-Germany)

The RSC offered several poster prizes on behalf of our sustainability and energy journals, and wish to take the opportunity here to congratulate the winners: Adriano H. Braga from the University of São Paulo in Brazil won the Sustainable Energy & Fuels prize; the Energy & Environmental Science prize went to Juan Arturo Mendoza-Nieto from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México); and the Green Chemistry prize was awarded to Mathias Smialkowski from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany.

The International Conference on Molecule-based Magnetism

ICMM is a joint community gathering that brings together chemists and physicists, together with biologists and materials scientists for deep and focused discussions on different topics in the field of molecule-based magnets, including metal organic frameworks, modelling and theory of electronic structure, magneto-chiral and frustrated systems, bio-magnetic phenomena, and magneto-optic and magneto-caloric nanomaterials.

Left to right: Jonathan J Marbey (Florida State University) receiving his prize from JMC C Advisory Board Member, Prof Roberta Sessoli; Luca M Carrella (Univ Mainz-Germany) centre, receiving his prize from Profs Miguel Novak (conference chair) and Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers Editor-in-Chief, Song Gao; Marcus J Giansiracusa (Univ Manchester-UK) centre, receiving his prize from Dalton Transactions Advisory Board Member, Prof Masahiro Yamashita and the conference Chair, Prof Miguel Novak.

RSC offered poster prizes and we wish to take the opportunity here to congratulate the winners. Jonathan J. Marbey from Florida State University won the Journal of Material Chemistry C prize, which was presented by one of the journal’s Advisory Board Members, Prof Roberta Sessoli from the University of Florence in Italy; Luca M. Carrella won the prize from Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers, which was presented by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Prof Song Gao and conference chair Prof Miguel Novak; and Marcus J. Giansiracusa received the Dalton Transactions prize, which was presented by the conference chair and one of the journal’s Advisory Board Members, Prof Masahiro Yamashita. What an honor for all of us.

Encontro Nacional de Química Analítica: The National Meeting on Analytical Chemistry

The Meet the Editor session at ENQA; pictured from left to right: Prof Dion Dionysiou, Prof Jailson B de Andrade, Prof Susan Lunte, RSC Editorial Development Manager Beth Magalhaes, and Prof Carlos Garcia.

ENQA was something else! With more than 1200 attendees, the meeting was a celebration of their achievements and the internationalization that is clear. Prof Wendell Coltro of Universidade Federal de Goiás (the Federal University of Goiás) did a fantastic job helping us organize a Meet the Editor session; he brought along Prof Carlos Garcia, who serves as an Associate Editor for RSC Advances, to join efforts with Prof Susan Lunte and Prof Jailson B de Andrade, who serve on the Advisory Board and Editorial Board of Analytical Methods, respectively. Prof Dion Dionysiou from the University of Cincinnati, an engaged author and Editor of the new Chemistry in the Environment books series, was also present to give some tips.

Prof Marcia Mesko, JAAS Lectureship awardee from Univ Pelotas-Brazil, was also honored during the event.

Tayane A. Freitas (UFSCar-Brazil) receiving her RSC Advances prize from Prof Carlos Garcia.

We just could not compete with the parallel section on Women in Chemistry, which goes to show how the Analytical community are discussing diversity and inclusion. Related to that, Prof Marcia Mesko from Universidade Federal de Pelotas was also honored for her recent achievements. She was awarded the JAAS Lectureship in 2018 and was selected for both the 100 Women in Chemistry and Young Analytical Scientists web collections, which include her recent paper from JAAS. She is now an Advisory Board Member for JAAS; she also currently serves as the Analytical Division President at SBQ, the Brazilian Chemical Society, and will be organizing the next ENQA.

Analyst/Analytical Methods and RSC Advances offered poster prizes and we wish to congratulate the winners. The Analyst/Analytical Methods prize was given to Bernardo F. Braz Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The RSC Advances prize was awarded to Tayane A. Freitas from Universidade Federal de São Carlos and we took took the opportunity to have Prof Garcia present it.

The Brazilian Meeting on Inorganic Chemistry

BMIC has a long-lasting relationship with the RSC and its Inorganic Division. This time the event went to Fortaleza, the Brazilian capital closest to Europe that is also easy to reach from North America. Perhaps lured by the lovely sightseeing and beautiful beach, the event brought renowned academics from around the world to Brazil. Americans including Prof Thomas Meyer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Associate Editor for New Journal of Chemistry Prof Debbie Crans from Colorado State University, and ChemComm Associate Ediot Prof T. Don Tilley from the University of California, Berkeley, joined international attendees like Prof Peter Junk , also an Associate Editor for New Journal of Chemistry, from James Cook University in the UK, Prof Osamu Ishitani from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, Frank T. Edelmann from Magdeburg University in Germany, Cedric Fischmeister from Université Rennes 1 in France, and Brazilians like Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences Editorial Board Member, Prof Mauricio Baptista from the University of São Paulo.

Left to right: Poster prize winners Isabela Moreira Soares Diógenis (UNICAMP , Brazil); Santiago Rostan (UdelaR, Uruguay); Victor Eulogio Lopez Guerrero (UNAM, México) with Peter Junk and Don Tilley.

Our journals Nanoscale, ChemComm and Nanoscale Advances awarded poster prizes and we would like to say congratulations to the winners: Isabela Moreira Soares Diógenis from Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, Santiago Rostan from Universidad de la República(UdelaR) in Uruguay, and Victor Eulogio Lopez Guerrero from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico. The winners received their prizes from Profs Peter Junk and Don Tilley.

Chemistry for Everyone

As a final message, we would like to encourage the Brazilian community to continue its engagement with the RSC. There are many ways to engage with us, such as using social media to participate in online discussion forums and promote events, by tagging our twitter account @RoySocChem to start a conversation with us, and taking advantage of relevant hashtags; researchers can explore our grants opportunities, dig into our events page, explore and read our portfolio of journals, magazines (ChemistryWorld and Education-in-Chemistry) and databases, and approaching us with ideas. We understand that the success of our community depends on our ability to encourage and nurture the talent of the best people, regardless of who they are or their background.

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PhD to Publishing: Jeremy Allen

07 Nov 2018

Jeremy Allen, PhD, was recently appointed the Deputy Editor of Chemical Science, the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. While he is based in Cambridge in the UK, as part of his role as Deputy Editor, Jeremy works with international staff and attends conferences around the globe. We first met Jeremy at the 3rd annual University of California Chemical Symposium, where many attendees were interested in learning more about his career path and what led him to his current position. Read on to learn about Jeremy’s current role and how he went from earning a PhD to a rewarding career in publishing!

“I guess I fell into my career in publishing through a desire to move away from active research while still keeping in touch with science. After my undergraduate degree I completed a PhD in computational chemistry. I was unsure about what to do as I was getting to the end of my graduate studies, and wasn’t really sure which direction to go in, but then a post doc opportunity turned up so I thought I’d give it a go. I stuck with my post doc for about 5 years altogether but for the last couple of years I knew that research wasn’t going to be the career for me – I didn’t have the passion and drive for the work that I felt I’d need to be a really successful academic and lecturing didn’t really appeal to me too much – so I started to look around for other industries/roles to move into. By chance I bumped into a former PhD student from my post doc group who was working at the RSC and she mentioned that they were recruiting. Like her I had a similar interest in science communication and I enjoyed proof reading/editing papers and theses from my group so thought I’d give it a try.

“I knew that research wasn’t going to be the career for me – I didn’t have the passion and drive for the work that I felt I’d need to be a really successful academic and lecturing didn’t really appeal to me too much – so I started to look around for other industries/roles to move into.”

Jeremy Allen at the 4th International Conference on Energy and Biological Materials in Hefei, China

“I’ve now been with the RSC for about 4 years and continue to enjoy the role. Publishers differ in whether they have in-house professional editors to handle papers, or whether they use academic-based editors. For the ACS, for example, all editors are based in academia with their staff supporting them in their role, whereas Nature editors are all professional editors. At the RSC we have a mixture, and the composition varies by journal. When I first started at the RSC I worked on PCCP and Nanoscale as a Publishing Editor. PCCP is a hybrid journal so it uses a mixture of the two, giving me a great opportunity to work with and support our academic editors while handling papers myself through the peer reviewer process. This ranged through carrying out initial assessments to check if a submitted manuscript was suitable for the journal based on scope, finding and inviting reviewers, and making decisions. In addition to this, I also played a role in commissioning cover artwork for Nanoscale, editing accepted manuscripts to make them ready for publication and I helped coordinate the production aspects of Nanoscale. I also was involved with a couple of Faraday Discussion meetings, which are essentially physical chemistry-based conferences where the speakers write a paper ahead of the meeting, which is sent to all delegates, and then the meeting is used to discuss the work. These discussions are all recorded by us and published in a volume with the papers. On one of our blogs, some of our Publishing Editors have shared some brief thoughts about their roles and experience which may be of interest to anyone considering a career in publishing.”

Jeremy Allen with poster prize winners at the 4th International Conference on Energy and Biological Materials.

“I now work alongside the Executive Editor and the Editorial Board, analyzing journal performance and planning the longer term strategy. I am responsible for putting together plans of how much work we want to commission for the journals I work on and what we will do to enhance their visibility within the community.”

After working as a Publishing Editor for a little over 3 years, I then changed position to become Deputy Editor for Chemical Science, ChemComm and Chemical Society Reviews. This role is more about the development of a journal, rather than production, and is much more varied. I now work alongside the Executive Editor and the Editorial Board, analyzing journal performance and planning the longer term strategy. I am responsible for putting together plans of how much work we want to commission for the journals I work on and what we will do to enhance their visibility within the community. I also go to conferences, like a recent GRC (Gordon Research Conference), to connect with academics, to hear of the new developments in a given field and to get direct feedback on our journals and the publishing landscape from our authors/reviewers point of view. My role has been taking me to amazing new places around the world – I recently attended a conference in China, the 4^th ICEBM. There I had the opportunity to meet poster prize winners, colleagues like Hongmei Peng from the RSC’s Shanghai office, and Xinhe Bao, who was one of the organizers and also serves on the Editorial Board for Energy & Environmental Science.

Jeremy Allen with Hongmei Peng (center) from the RSC Shanghai office and Energy & Environmental Science Editorial Board Member Xinhe Bao.

“Working for a society publisher is also really nice, not only because of the not-for-profit motivations, but also because there is a whole aspect to the organization that isn’t publishing and focuses on supporting people in the chemical sciences…”

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed working in publishing over the past 4 years and have no plans on changing career anytime soon! Working for a society publisher is also really nice, not only because of the not-for-profit motivations, but also because there is a whole aspect to the organization that isn’t publishing and focuses on supporting people in the chemical sciences, whether it be through education, RSC membership, conferences/events, awards or influencing government policy which leads to a really diverse group of people to work with. While publishing is relatively self-contained at the RSC, there are opportunities to interact with other departments, and potential future career options too!”

We’re happy to have Jeremy on board with Chemical Science and we’re excited to see what the future will hold as the journal continues to develop. The upcoming year will surely be a time of excitement, with IUPAC declaring 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table. We expect lots of events and opportunities to meet more RSC Editorial Board Members, Associate Editors, and Deputy Editors like Jeremy. Next time you’re at a conference that is being supported by Chemical Science, keep an eye out for Jeremy and make sure to say hello!

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