Jealott’s Hill chemists are helping to turn this around by acting as ambassadors for their science and Syngenta.
The questions kept flowing at the recent ScotCHEM lecture course, sponsored by Syngenta and presented by three Chemists from our
UK R&D site; Claire Russell, Paula Rzepa and Mark Slater. The one-day ‘Discovery of Agrochemicals’ course was designed by chemists based at Jealott’s Hill and aimed at building awareness of both the agrochemical industry and Syngenta. Feedback from participants was extremely positive. “I have never seen anywhere near this level of interaction at such an event. This was due to the beautiful structure, quality, and content of the course, coupled with the quite excellent delivery and willingness to interact with the attendees,” said Professor William Kerr, University of Strathclyde.
The course was attended by 137 academics and PhD students from six Scottish universities: Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot Watt, St. Andrews and Strathclyde. “The students have lots of presentations from the pharmaceutical industry, so events like this are important to raise awareness of Syngenta and the exciting science we are involved in, which will help secure potential future collaborations and recruitment opportunities for Syngenta R&D,” explains Claire Russell, Senior Research Chemist, Jealott’s Hill.
The day consisted of six lectures and an informal poster session, with the posters covering topics on the Syngenta
Chemistry Scholarship Scheme, CASE collaborations for PhD funding and recruitment. The enthusiasm for the lecture topics was clearly illustrated by the number and breadth of delegate questions. “We picked topics that the delegates could identify with and used real Syngenta case studies to bring our chemistry to life – they were particularly interested in our rain tower and surprised by how complex our field trials are,” says Claire.
ScotCHEM is a collaborative venture for the pooling and enhancement of resources for chemistry research in Scotland. Jealott’s Hill Chemists have previously presented these lectures for students at Imperial College in London and for local staff, so are well practiced and used to being questioned. “The level of interaction in Scotland was outstanding,” says Claire. “There was even a queue of people waiting to talk to us as we were packing away!” The Syngenta Chemists have been invited to run the lecture series again at ScotCHEM and are looking forward to going back.