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Grand opening for York’s multi-million pound chemistry buildings

Posted on 4 September 2014

New undergraduate teaching laboratories and new research facilities for the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence at the University of York will officially open in York on Friday 5 September.

Students in the new undergraduate teaching laboratories (credit: www.witness.co.uk)

They are part of a £29 million phased redevelopment of the University’s Department of Chemistry. The event also coincides with the launch of the Chemistry 50 Fund, a new campaign to help to develop the next generation of scientists to find solutions to some of the global challenges facing society. 

A day of celebrations will feature opening ceremonies for the two parts of the new development. Dame Ellen MacArthur will open the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence’s new headquarters while the teaching labs will be opened by the first female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Professor Lesley Yellowlees, of Edinburgh University and by Professor Sir John Holman, Senior Education Advisor to the Wellcome Trust, who will also present a demonstration lecture on "Teaching Science the Practical Way".

Professor Yellowlees and Professor Sir John Holman will also join a panel debate on ‘The Public Value of Chemistry’ chaired in the National Science Learning Centre (NSLC). The debate, chaired by Professor Richard Taylor (Head of our Chemistry Department), comes in the same week that the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence won an international S-Lab award for laboratory-based teaching and learning.

Part of a phased investment in redeveloping the Department of Chemistry, construction on the new £10 million buildings began in 2012 and was part-financed by a £1.4 million investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the 2007-13 Yorkshire and The Humber ERDF Programme.

New facilities in the ground floor teaching laboratories include 80 two-person fumehoods together with an associated analysis lab, an NMR lab, a computational lab and a social area. On the upper floor, the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence includes a laboratory with 20 fumehoods, an instrumentation room, a reactor room, lecture/seminar rooms and an associated industrial engagement area.

The Centre is also home to the WasteValor project, which helps SMEs who create or process food waste identify opportunities to extract valuable chemicals from their waste and partner with companies who could use those chemicals in their own business. WasteValor is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and provides two day’s free consultancy from the Centre’s scientists to SMEs in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Professor Richard Taylor, Head of the Department of Chemistry at York, said: “This exciting new development gives us more scope to undertake a wide range of practical chemistry with supporting instrumentation, office and support areas providing outstanding professional-standard training facilities for the scientists of tomorrow.

“As our Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence moves into new research facilities we will continue to be a world leading research centre, promoting the development and implementation of green and sustainable chemistry and related technologies into new products and processes. With a renewed focus on wider participation and collaboration we can now provide a modern research laboratory to promote greater engagement with industrial partners.”

Chemistry graduate, Dr Anthony H. Wild, has been a major supporter of the Department’s investment into laboratory and teaching space. He will initiate a matching challenge to help encourage fellow alumni to support the York Chemistry 50 Fund.

Between September 2014 and December 2015 (the 50^th anniversary of the end of the first term for our first cohort of Chemistry students) graduates will be asked to support the appeal and all donations will be matched £1 for £1. Gifts over £500 will be matched £2 for every £1 given.

Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Mary Haworth, said: “Funding for research students particularly at Masters level is a challenge in itself and many talented students are not able to undertake postgraduate study at York without additional financial support.

“The fund will support Masters, PhD and Post-doc students as well as encouraging undergraduates considering research careers through the Department’s innovative Summer Vacation Bursary programme.”

The official opening will conclude with a dinner hosted by the University of York’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Koen Lamberts.

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