The chemical industry needs a complete overhaul of how it makes molecules—drugs, fertilisers, plastics—to stop relying on fossil fuels, endangered metals, and wasteful processes that produce huge amounts of pollution. This Centre for Doctoral Training will train a new generation of chemists to rethink organic synthesis from the ground up. Current methods are energy-intensive and generate vast waste streams, which is incompatible with a net-zero future and a circular economy. Without a skilled workforce that understands sustainable chemistry from the start, the UK chemical industry—a major economic sector—cannot keep pace with tightening regulations or maintain its global competitiveness. If successful, the programme will produce hundreds of PhD graduates who can design cleaner synthetic routes for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and advanced materials. These chemists will work directly with industry partners, including more than 10 small and medium enterprises, and connect with a €1.25 billion European initiative aiming to transform chemical manufacturing. The result would be a UK-wide network of innovators who embed sustainability into every step of chemical production, from lab bench to factory floor.
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Humanity faces critical global challenges in supplying clean energy, food, medicines and materials for a population forecast to reach 10 billion by 2050. Chemical synthesis will play a central role in addressing these challenges, as organic molecules are the fundamental building blocks of drugs, agrochemicals, and materials. However, the synthesis of most chemicals remains energy intensive, requiring fossil fuel feedstocks and endangered metal catalysts, and produces huge levels of waste - far from what is needed for a net-zero future. The essential transition to a circular chemistry economy will materialise only with a total re-think of organic synthesis: a 'Chemical Revolution' is urgently needed, for which Industry users will require a 'next generation' of suitably trained graduates. Without such change, the chemical industry will not be able to sustain the necessary pace of innovation in new chemical technologies, in the face of rapidly changing chemical regulation and policy, thus rendering this CDT crucial for the future of UK PLC. The Oxford-York ESPRC CDT in Chemical Synthesis for a Healthy Planet will deliver world-leading, ground-breaking training to a next generation of synthetic chemists, developing a sustainable, innovative chemistry culture that equips them to address major emerging and future global challenges in Human Health, Energy and Materials, and Food Security. In doing so, we meet a critical User Need, by supplying the workforce that is essential to create the innovative solutions UK chemical industries urgently require. Our overarching objective is to train students to supersede current practices for the synthesis of functional organic molecules by developing sustainable, field-advancing synthetic pathways to the complex targets needed in drug discovery, agrochemistry, and materials development. Our student cohorts will work together in a training period at both Oxford and York, before engaging with industry co-supervised projects in four research fields that develop innovative, sustainable transformations and synthetic strategies, and apply them in pharma, agro and materials chemistry contexts. With around a third of projects supervised jointly at Oxford and York, we will ensure a strong cross-institute connection; whole programme meetings and research field seminars will enable students across multiple cohorts to contribute to and elevate each others' science. Our association with the Eur1.25bn Center for the Transformation of Chemistry brings a unique connection for our students to a major initiative that is aiming to revolutionise chemical synthesis, as well its >140 chemical organisations across Europe. Our partnership with >10 SMEs and their Entrepreneurs-in-Residence will develop entrepreneurial skills and ensure students are exposed to the cutting-edge of chemical innovation in UK PLC. The applications and benefits from the CSHP CDT are many: Primarily, we will develop a UK-wide network of sustainably-minded, innovative chemists ready to meet the urgent User Needs of the UK chemical industry, bolstering this major sector of UK PLC. The scientists graduating from the CSHP CDT, the high-level science they produce, along with the related tools and technologies, will all contribute to the UK's ambitions as a Physical and Mathematical Sciences Powerhouse. We will set new benchmarks for graduate training by ensuring sustainability is embedded and visible in all research and its outputs, as well as influencing and connecting to graduates across the UK through biennial symposia. Our cohorts' work as Sustainability Ambassadors will permeate our exciting discoveries and the message of the future role of synthetic chemistry throughout society - from school to the general public. Above all, we believe this rigorous and inspirational programme is utterly essential if the UK is to remain globally competitive in the rapidly evolving chemistry landscape.
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