This camp was a transformative educational event that ran from from November 10 to November 12, 2023, at the TDF MagnifiScience Centre in Karachi, Pakistan. The camp opened doors for young minds from across Pakistan to explore the fusion of three worlds – German Language, Mathematics of AI, and the Genetic Code.

IntoUniversity believes that everyone should have the opportunity to access the benefits higher education can provide. They provide learning centres where young people are inspired to achieve. Our local centre is at Craigmillar, and recently Prof. Colin Campbell and Dr Mathew Horrocks delivered 2 colourful workshops exploring the chemistry behind light and how we see things.

Alongside other CSE schools, chemistry was based in the Nucleus, with representation from staff, PhD and UG students, all eager to chat the public about chemistry!

The annual event was also graced this year by two impressive Scots – Sir David MacMillan and David Mackay, who were the 2023 recipients of the Baird of Bute Scottish Innovation and Scottish Aviation Award. Recent Nobel Laureate David MacMillan (2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “the development of asymmetric organocatalysis”) and the first Scot in Space David Mackay (Chief Pilot of Virgin Galactic and former RAF test pilot) served as a reminder of the great things our small country can achieve.

Dr Oksana Tananaiko from the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Professor Volodymyr Amirkhanov from the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, and Professor Ihor Komarov and Dr Halyna Hrabchuk from the Educational Scientific Institute of High Technologies, visited Edinburgh to establish new research links, and make plans for joint teaching initiatives between Kyiv and Edinburgh.

Academics presented their ground-breaking research on quantum technology, natural language processing and bioinspired robotics, for example, and discussed how it is being applied, through partnerships with private and public sectors, to address challenges in healthcare, ethics and sustainability.

The School of Chemistry is hosting a group of Ukrainian students as part of an initiative with Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

The students have been using our labs and gaining experience with some of our instrumentation.

PhD students Katie Grant, Ailsa Geddis, Heather McEwan and Emily Noone developed and delivered a range of chemistry activities to pupils from Primary 1 all the way to S6. Over the course of a week, they reached an incredible 802 pupils from some of the most rural locations in Scotland (1 high school and 14 primary schools).

Researchers from the School of Chemistry have featured in a Scipod podcast based on a journal article featuring Dr Caroline Kirk, Professor Carole Morrison, Dr Fiona MacIver-Jones and previous BSc student Polly Sutcliffe from the School of Chemistry.

Workshop in a Box (“WiaB”) is an outreach project developed and managed by a team of PhD students (Emily Goddard, Katie Grant, Daniel Cutler and Ailsa Geddis) in the School of Chemistry and was founded in late 2020 with support from the RSC Outreach Fund. This project aims to allow Scottish secondary school chemistry pupils from all backgrounds access to hands-on experience of real laboratory equipment.