Chemical Education Today edited by
Jonathan R. Hill Journal of Chemical Education University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
Training Chemists in the United Kingdom Janet Scott JLS ChemConsult Ltd., Reading RG4 7RN United Kingdom
[email protected] For the past 20 years, I have worked in both academia and industry in three countries: South Africa, Australia, and the United Kingdom. All of these countries have similar, although not identical, approaches to postgraduate education in chemistry, leading to the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. or D.Phil.) for a body of original academic research. There are different understandings of what constitutes original research. For example, Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK) uses the following description: “Ph.D. students are expected to make a substantial, original contribution to knowledge in their area, normally leading to published work” (1). In most cases, coursework is not a mandatory requirement for award of the Ph.D., and the time available for completion of the “body of original academic research” is limited to between three and three and a half years. Such limits are more and more strictly applied by a combination of two pressures: tight funding restrictions on both students and universities, and increasingly detailed scrutiny of metrics pertaining to completion rates. Regarding the latter, the scrutiny is both internal (departments, schools, or faculties are compared within an institution) and external (degree-awarding institutions are compared to each other). As I am about to take up some new challenges in green (or sustainable) chemistry education at a postgraduate level in the United Kingdom, I have been reflecting on how we supervise, or train, Ph.D. students in chemistry.
capitalist industry, pressure is always applied to achieve the best possible outcome in the shortest possible time! The Potential Tension between Focus and Creativity One of the most important compromises engendered by the focus on “completion” (meaning, writing up and submitting the thesis in the requisite time) is the increased risk associated with taking on hard problems. Supervisors are led to propose projects with relatively narrow scope and, assuming diligent application of the student to the problem, almost foregone conclusions. Creativity (chemistry is a very creative science) and originality may be sacrificed to achievability, and to the ability of the student in question. Open-ended exploratory research tends to be disfavored in such a system. This is an unfortunate trend that seems to reflect the growing trend in research funding, where even socalled blue-sky research is subjected to questions of “relevance” or “route to market,” often by reviewers patently incapable of evaluating either of these criteria! This is not my opinion alone. Consider a recent report entitled “Chemistry for the Next Decade and Beyond; International Review of UK Chemistry Research, 19-24 April 2009” (2). This report, prepared in collaboration with a range of knowledgeable advisors, reflects the considered opinions of a group of highly esteemed international chemists. It contains the following comment (2): Ph.D. requirements in the UK should give more emphasis on achievement and be flexible enough to allow up to five years, if necessary, for completion without penalty to the individual involved. A flexible approach would not prohibit three or four year Ph.D.s but overall would probably allow for more adventurous research.
The Education and the Training of Ph.D. Students In recent years, the emphasis in how we prepare Ph.D. students in chemistry seems to have shifted from an “education” to a “training” process. Where once most people would have agreed that the role of an academic supervisor was a combination of both mentor and facilitator of the independent learning process (and of access to expertise and equipment), the word “training” appears more frequently in publications about postgraduate education in the sciences. This is particularly true in documents issuing from university administrations, politicians, or bodies responsible for funding or those overseeing higher education. Pressure is exerted on students and supervisors to ensure that Ph.D.s are completed in the minimum time. Inevitably, compromises may be made. Now, before anyone takes pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to refute this, I hasten to add that increased pressure is not always a bad thing, and institutions being held accountable can lead to better outcomes for students. After all, we have all met the student who hadn't yet written up their dissertation because the professor wanted “one more experiment” (although these are rarer and rarer). And, in what is often called the “real world” of
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The report made a specific recommendation: DTA funds and internal university Ph.D. degree awarding mechanisms should be adjusted to allow elasticity in the duration of the Ph.D. training programme, but certainly not beyond five years.
Returning now to the training-supervision dichotomy, I suggest that training may be thought of as a process of readying a student for a specific role, with connotations of control and clear direction toward specific outcomes. Supervision implies a guiding role, a mentoring in the process of developing a scientific idea, preferably an original idea or at least a significant development of the field. If, in some careers, training is the more appropriate route, then we should give more value and prestige to those degrees that effect such training or preparation and value the difference between the degrees available, rather than propagating the view that some degrees are better than others. Some students
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 4 April 2010 10.1021/ed800137u Published on Web 03/09/2010
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proceeding to careers in industry may find that a broader preparation, with less emphasis on originality, would serve their purposes. That said, however, some of the most creative chemists that I have met have worked in industry; creativity and focus need not be at odds with each other. When Chemists Move from Academia to Industry This brings us to a consideration of the similarities and differences between industry and academia and some possible discontinuities that chemists may experience when passing from their Ph.D.s or postdoctoral experiences to an industrial position. If one takes as given that a student capable of completing a Ph.D. at a reputable institution to the satisfaction of an exacting panel of examiners (3) is well versed in the scientific and technical aspects of the specialized area of chemistry in which they have focused (i.e., is a “good” chemist), then what other attributes or skills might this person be expected to display? Phrases such as “an ability to communicate effectively” and “team player” often appear in job advertisements. Contrary to the popular view of the chemist as the “geek” left out of conversation at parties, most chemists develop good communication skills during their graduate years as they are encouraged (at least at those institutions to be taken seriously) to write reports, draft papers (after all, this is “original academic research”), and present their work both to their immediate peers and to wider scrutiny at conferences and symposia. Nonetheless, Ph.D. graduates or postdoctoral chemists transferring to industry may be surprised to find that, in addition to their hard-won specialist knowledge and expertise, they also need the so-called softer skills of teamwork, flexibility, and critical thinking (4). We will focus here on teamwork and flexibility. After all, if critical thinking is not part of a university graduate's skill set, then we have collectively failed to address the most important aspect of education! It might be argued that academic research groups, ranging from a few students and their academic supervisor to large assemblages of students, postdoctoral workers, lecturers, and supporting technicians answering to the “God Professor,” are teams. Academic teams, however, are seldom run along the same sort of lines as teams assembled in industry. In my experience, the latter are often fluid, brought together for varying lengths of time to deal with specific problems that usually have clearly defined targets and goals. These teams may also be less hierarchical than academic research group teams, implying greater responsibility for each individual member. The largest difference, however, is probably the interdisciplinary nature of such teams, and it is this that often represents the greatest challenge for the new industrial chemist. It is quite remarkable how many chemists have never spoken to an engineer in a professional sense or even considered the knowledge that marketing personnel will need to be able to make the most of the team's clever innovation, or the patent team to protect the ingenious invention.
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Conclusion: Joining Original Research with Skill Development Some recent Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) initiatives (5), including the Doctoral Training Centres (DTCs), go some way toward addressing the need for broader skills development without reducing the time available for the original research required for the Ph.D. In the DTC programs, funding is extended to four years, and both coursework and project components appear in the first year. Thus, the “training” component is added to, rather than replacing, the “research” component. The most recent group of DTCs awarded fall into the Securing the Future call (6), and these all comprise multidisciplinary groups of researchers so that the students are placed in an environment with greater scientific diversity than many research groups. For example, the DTC in Sustainable Chemical Technologies at the University of Bath is a joint initiative between the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and is intended to comprise similar numbers of students from each discipline. Typically, Ph.D. projects will be focused at the interface between the disciplines, and coursework will encompass both knowledge acquisition (particularly in areas in which the student has not concentrated at an undergraduate level) and skills development, as well as considering the broader issues of sustainability. While individual Ph.D. projects will be highly focused as usual, the student operating within this broader group will be exposed to a greater breadth of perspective and scientifically more diverse peers, hopefully resulting in a more outwardlooking chemist or engineer able to embrace diversity, work at the interface with other disciplines, and resist the “I am a specialist in ...” limitation without sacrificing depth of scientific understanding. Time will tell. Literature Cited 1. Joint Statement of the Skills Training Requirements for Research Students. http://www.vitae.ac.uk/cms/files/RCUK-Joint-Skills-Statement2001.pdf (accessed Feb 2010). 2. EPSRC's 2009 International Review of UK Chemistry Research Web Site. http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/AboutEPSRC/IntRevs/2009ChemistryIR/ default.htm (accessed Feb 2010). 3. In the U.K., Ph.D. students submit a written dissertation, which is examined in conjunction with an oral examination (the viva voce) by a small panel of academics from within and without their institution. 4. Lewis, R. Nature 2007, 446, 464–465. 5. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the U.K. research council usually associated with chemistry research in U.K. universities. 6. A full list of the 12 centers awarded under this scheme may be found at EPSRC's Web Site, `Securing the Future' Doctoral Training Centres: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/Centres/SecuringTheFuture.htm (accessed Feb 2010).
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