Researchers at the University of Sheffield have received £2million to invest in a research centre which will help develop cutting edge technology from personal care products to the next generation of medical supplies.

The Molecular Engineering Translational Research Centre (METRC), funded by the N8 Research Partnership, will combine the research strength of the N8 group of universities to explore molecular engineering and nanotechnology to develop new products. The investment comes from a grant awarded to N8 from the Northern Way Growth Fund.

By combining world-class research expertise from the Universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York, the new Centre will help move technology past the concept phase to highly functional products for use in everyday life.

The centre, which is led by Professor Tony Ryan OBE, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Pure Science at the University of Sheffield, will collaborate with businesses in the North and internationally, to share knowledge to develop new products, processes and services to help them innovate faster and take a larger share of rapidly-changing global markets.

Researchers at the centre will focus on a number of market sectors, including home and personal care, medicine and healthcare, and energy. Developments could include sensors and implants providing healthcare through human-device interfaces, easier interaction between humans and IT, and smart homes and fabrics.

Professor Tony Ryan said: “The fundamental objective of METRC is to stimulate economic growth. The old corporate research labs have gone and we’d like to create space where industrial and academic scientists can work alongside each other to turn cutting edge University research into exciting new products and processes for UK and global companies. Molecular engineering underpins a wealth of existing and new products - from soap to solar cells. Our business is in the science of everyday things.”

Professor Keith Burnett, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield and Chair of the Board of N8, added: “The N8 universities undertake more than £720m of research and employ over 8,200 academic staff. N8 is the largest ‘research pooling’ partnership ever undertaken in the UK and represents a unique combination of complementary research strengths and capacity which is of proven world-leading quality. Our aim is to maximise the impact of our research capabilities on the reputational and economic standing of the North and the UK, and the development of this Research Centre with financial assistance from the Northern Way is a significant step towards achieving this.”

Please visit the METRC website for more information:

www.molecularengineering.co.uk

The Polymer Centre seeks a Business Development Consultant to join our team at Sheffield, which provides business liaison services and collaborative project management support to the University’s 40-strong network of academic groups active in polymer science and engineering.

Reporting to the Polymer Centre Manager, the postholder will stimulate interest in the technology, expertise and facilities within the Polymer Centre by proactive engagement with business, civil service and other external partners and subsequent running of technical projects. The successful applicant will be IT literate, educated to degree level (or equivalent), with experience of research & development (ideally in both an academic and industrial context) in polymers or a related field, technology transfer/commercialisation and project management, and will have a good understanding of the issues associated with business-university interactions.

This post is fixed-term and is available from 1 December 2008 for a period of 12 months. Closing date for applications is November 7.

Please follow the link below for more information on post ref R06769.

University of Sheffield vacancies

After five years at the helm of Sheffield’s Polymer Centre, Dr Malcolm Butler has been appointed Faculty Director of Operations for the University’s Faculty of Engineering.

When Malcolm returned to the University of Sheffield after 12 years with Corus, the Polymer Centre looked very different. A group of primarily polymer chemists under the direction of Prof John Ebdon and Prof Tony Ryan with a modest database of 300 contacts has since grown to a network of 40 Sheffield research groups in science, engineering and medicine communicating with outside contacts numbering over 2000.

The Polymer Centre now offers an extensive range of training and education courses via the Polymer IRC modular course, bespoke training courses for companies and Sheffield’s taught MSc in Polymers for Advanced Technologies. The team further applies its event management expertise in running conferences and seminars for academic groups across the University.

The team now provides a comprehensive business liaison service, mapping client needs onto the expertise and facilities available across the academic network, recommending project formats and assisting in project management where necessary.

One of Malcolm’s most significant achievements was the foundation in 2005 of FaraPack Polymers Ltd (FPP), Sheffield’s spin-out contract polymer R&D company, which delivers the short– and medium-term research projects that clients often want but which can be difficult to manage through university systems.

Malcolm has now stepped down as Polymer Centre Manager and Managing Director of FPP. Dr Liam Sutton, Business Research Fellow responsible for technical liaison operations since April 2006, becomes the new Polymer Centre Manager and Director of FPP.

An international conference covering thin polymer films including polymer crystallisation, polymer brushes, glass transition, soft nanotechnology. Deadline for abstract submission is July 31st 2008. Confirmed speakers include:

Jan Genzer: Creating heteropolymers with adjustable monomer sequences via templated chemical “coloring”
Wilhelm Huck: Polyelectrolyte Brush Amplified Electroactuation of Microcantilevers
Elie Raphaël: Dewetting Dynamics of Thin Polymer Films
Jürgen Rühe: Wetting of Surfaces- How important is the nanoscale?
Tom Russell: Capillary wrinkling of floating thin films
Tony Ryan: Polymer Crystallisation: Influence of flow and interfaces
Ashu Sharma: Self-organized Adhesion and Pattern Formation in Elastic Solid Films
Jens-Uwe Sommer: Polymer Brushes at moderate and high grafting densities: Effects of chain stretching and end-groups
Uwe Thiele: Rupture and coarsening pathways for dewetting two-layer films and films of binary mixtures
Ophelia Tsui: Examination of Non-liquidlike Behaviors in Molten Polymer Films
Uli Wiesner: Nanostructured Metals from Soft Designer Macromolecules
Mitch Winnik: Living self- assembly of block copolymers into fibre-like structures in solution and from surfaces

PolyFilm conference website

In this issue:

• Meeting the solar challenge – how scientists at the IRC are working with colleagues around the UK to develop conjugated polymers for new, large area, photovoltaic devices.
• Looking forward to Polymers in Society - this year’s Polymer Showcase. This meeting will cover medicinal polymers, waste management, and sustainable energy. It will also look forward to the next 50 years of polyolefins.
• Wonderland – where art meets (polymer) science
• Training opportunities
• Towards greener plastics - FaraPack Knowledge Shop on sustainable packaging
  Review of Faraday Discussion 139: The Importance of Polymer Science for Biological Systems and the Polymer IRC Club Spring Meeting
• Prof Phil Coates, Director of the Polymer Engineering IRC and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Bradford, recognized in the 2008 Swinburne Award.

Download your copy below:

Polymer Links, June 2008 - issue 11 (548kB)

The brochure for the 2008 course is now available, with full details about the modules offered, and how to reserve your place:

2008 Course brochure

The role is to generate robust experimental data and analysis on the compatibility of materials and the integration of inks into ink jet printers. Incorporating a high level of practical experimentation with method development and data reporting. The successful applicant will be educated to degree level in Materials Science, Polymer Science, Chemistry, or a related subject.

For further details and how to apply, please see the document linked below. Vacancy posted 19th June 2008, no closing date given.

Vacancy with Domino

Weetwood Hall, Leeds

Plastic, plastic packaging and their impact on the environment are hot topics. More significantly, they are also complex, causing confusion and chaos in the commercial market place. Drivers and solutions do not appear to be joined up - the outcome being plastics taking a political and media battering.

This one-day event, organised by Faraday Packaging, will explore how a supply chain committed to true sustainability can beat the odds and drive towards a sustainable plastics operation.

It brings together the leading company practioners, representing the whole packaging supply chain, who will describe how they are responding to the challenge of the sustainable plastics agenda.

The companies sharing their insights include Dow, Innovia Films, Alliance Boots, Nextek Ltd and The Co-operative.

Please visit the link below for more information on venue, programme and registration:

Towards Greener Plastics website

Molecular Nanostructures from Fabrication to Applications - the Snomipede project aims to a adapt near-field optical techniques (capable of 9 nm resolution) to massively parallel operation, offering nanometre scale spatial resolution, combined with exquisite chemical selectivity, over macroscopically extended areas.

This open day will provide a selection of highlights from our workon the development of new instrumentation and new chemistries for device fabrication. Additionally there will be presentations by JuergenRuehe(IMTEK, University of Freiburg), Duncan Sutherland (iNano, Denmark) and Peter Beton (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham).

For a programme and further details, please download the registration document linked below:

Snomipede open day

Lubrizol’s Chemical Synthesis Department at Hazelwood has a vacancy for a Research Chemist. The successful applicant will be part of a diverse and innovative group of scientists generating new ideas and applications that impact our business worldwide. You will be expected to interact daily with our commercial, analytical and performance testing departments in Hazelwood and Wickliffe, Ohio; pilot-plant and production facilities throughout the world and our main synthesis laboratories in Wickliffe to achieve this end. You will also be expected to help draft patents on your inventions, work closely with Universities, write detailed technical reports and undertake molecular modelling.

Vacancy posted 3rd June 2008, no closing date given. Please see the job description linked below for further details and how to apply:

Lubrizol synthetic chemist