Core Capability for Chemistry Research

The case for infrastructure investment in UK chemistry departments has been well made in a number of fora. Such investment will provide the knowledge generation and highly trained individuals required by UK industry as well as the cutting-edge fundamental investigations required to keep UK chemistry at the forefront of world research. The industrial benefits of investment are clear: the UK chemistry and chemical-using sectors contribute over £250 bn to the UK economy (20% of GDP), underpin over 6 million jobs and are major exporters (22% of UK exports are in chemicals and pharmaceuticals). It is important that this sector prospers and grows in coming years to rebalance the economy. UK chemistry's position on the academic world-stage is reflected by the high proportion of the European Research Councils' budget (>25%) the UK wins and from the outcomes of the EPSRC 2010 international review of chemistry.
The last major investment in the key infrastructure requirements of Chemistry Departments - the "core 4" of NMR, mass spectrometry, X-ray methods and atomic-scale microscopy - was via the 2002-2006 SRIF process. There is, therefore, a pressing national need for instrument refresh. Whilst most current equipment needs are to support individual Departments, we believe that we can gain additional value by providing a network of well-equipped and well-supported instrumentation hubs within the N8 Research Partnership. The N8, founded in 2007, is a partnership of 8 of the most research-intensive universities in the North of England; all are world top 1% institutions. The N8 chemistry Departments involved in this bid combine research excellence and intensity with the geographical proximity needed for effective infrastructure sharing and are already very well-connected via research and training collaborations. Each Department has a strong portfolio of EPSRC sponsored research and extensive industrial links from SMEs to blue-chip companies.

Investment in this infrastructure will have significant impact to a wide range of research projects undertaken in collaboration with industry, as outlined in the main proposal.