Page 17 - PERIODIC Magazine Issue 7

O xICFM – a new Centre

for Doctoral Training

Laboratory work for the DPhil in Inorganic Chemistry

As we celebrate the International Year of the Periodic throughout the substantive research phase, the training
Table in 2019, we are delighted to announce the programme will be relevant to a range of different
establishment of a new multi-disciplinary doctoral business sectors and sizes.
training programme in inorganic chemical synthesis. The
Oxford Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing Beginning in Michaelmas 2019, students will take six
Centre for Doctoral Training (OxICFM CDT) is a new months of taught courses during the first year, followed
£10.4m EPSRC-funded centre focused on training the by a substantive research project in their particular
next generation of graduate chemists. field of interest. Training modules will involve lectures,
problem classes, tutorials, site visits and advanced
The centre aims to equip practical components. Students will also take an
and enable future scientists advanced laboratory course together with a week-long
to address critical societal project looking at scale up and chemical engineering.
challenges, from building There will also be modules focussing on professional
better batteries to designing skills and responsible research and innovation, as well
effective catalysts. The as an annual summer school encompassing outreach
OxICFM CDT will work training and research presentations.
across the entire breadth of
the periodic table, offering Professor Simon
cutting-edge research projects Aldridge, Director of the
encompassing the majority of the isolable elements. OxICFM CDT, explains: “Our
CDT brings together over
Based in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory in the 40 academics, ten industrial
Department of Chemistry, OxICFM is led by a team of partners (spanning diverse size
senior inorganic chemists who have brought together ranges and business sectors),
over 40 academics from a range of disciplines – and seventeen international
including materials, physics and engineering – to offer centres of excellence in
postgraduate students a comprehensive four-year synthetic inorganic chemistry
course. (including collaborators at MIT, Berkeley and ETH).
Our programme will help address a national need
Alongside them, the CDT has partnered with eight for resilience and growth in this sector, and we look
companies and two national facilities to provide a broad- forward to developing the next generation of world-class
based, integrated training package. By embedding a researchers in synthetic inorganic
strong industrial component into the taught elements and chemistry.”

http://www.oxicfm.ox.ac.uk/ Twitter: @OxICFM
17
Periodic
The Magazine of the Department of Chemistry