Interest group in the spotlight
175 minutes for chemistry
The Industrial Physical Chemistry Group (IPCG) is our member-driven, special interest group dedicated to promoting industrial applications of physical chemistry. Through their meetings and events, they encourage and support the exchange of information, knowledge and opinion between industry and academia. As one of the earliest interest groups of our Faraday Division, the IPCG's origin goes back to the 1960s. Committee member Dr John Ramsay has been exploring the early roots of the IPCG and looking at the motivations of the individuals behind its inception.
"In its early years of existence, apart from having one of the most active conference programmes, the group had a committee that had a considerable influence on the development of UK research in physical chemistry."
John became involved with the IPCG committee in the late 1970s while working at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. He was the committee secretary from the 1980s until he left his role as senior principal scientific officer at Harwell in 1990, with the closure of the nuclear reactors there. John's research was primarily around neutron scattering, and he continued this on moving to the Institute of Research on Catalysis and the Environment in Lyon, France. You can find a video of John in action, discussing his research at Harwell in 1986 here.
"Its origins go back over 40 years and it is rather exceptional amongst other subject groups because it has a broad remit and was not formed to cover a specialised research field in physical chemistry. Furthermore, the driving force for its foundation came from the inspiration of a group of research directors of several of the largest UK chemical companies."
Combining leading figures from academia and industry, the group had a very active conference programme and often worked with other scientific societies to run meetings with a cross-sector appeal. Some of these formed the basis of Faraday Discussions – our longstanding international meetings that focus on rapidly developing areas of chemistry and its interfaces with other scientific disciplines.
Download and read John's full account of the group’s history.
If you're involved in a chemistry-based group or committee, you could spend your 175 minutes for chemistry looking into its history.
175 minutes for chemistry
As the oldest chemical society in the world, we celebrated our 175th anniversary in 2016. We wanted to mark this milestone by recognising the important contributions our community makes to the chemical sciences. We asked our members and supporters to dedicate 175 minutes to chemistry in 2016 and share their stories with us. We featured these stories throughout the year on our website, in print in RSC News, and on social media using #time4chem.
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If you've been involved in an event or activity, or just have an interesting story to tell, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch using the online form or tweet us @RoySocChem using #time4chem.