A Day in Brussels – une journée á Bruxelles

On the 30th May, I attended a special event in Brussels organised by Cefic, the European Chemistry Industry Council. Cefic was founded in 1972 and is the main association of the chemical industry in Europe, representing almost 29,000 companies.1 As part of their 50th year anniversary celebrations, a unique day was organised bringing together professors, students and industry CEO’s to - as the title of the event implies - ‘Honour Science & Celebrate Chemistry’.

This was an eye-opening experience for me, and completely different to my daily work in the labs of UCD. Coming from a university research lab where our daily attire is lab coats and runners, it was easy to feel out of place at such a grand event! Nevertheless, the students put each other at ease, 21 students from 21 EU countries participated, with research areas spanning almost as broad as our geographical origins.

In the morning, students were divided into groups and an assignment was presented to us, each topic addressing a different challenge for the future of chemistry and society. We were tasked with producing a report and will be presenting the results at the Cefic Chemical Convention in October 2022.

During coffee breaks and throughout the day, students were encouraged to interact with the professors and CEOs, who were friendly and willing to interact. Titles and accolades aside, there was a sense of coming together for the purpose of the day,

The next part of the day kicked off with a discussion moderated by BBC's Stephen Sackur on the future of chemistry. To make matters interesting, delegates were seated in a mixed fashion according to profession, this way at each table was a mix of student, professor and CEO voices. Topics such as ‘heroes in chemistry’, ‘the greatest chemical innovation in the past 50 years’, and ‘the future innovation which will make greatest impact’ were presented for discussion; with such a mixed table came many mixed opinions which enhanced the discussion. I came across questions that I openly didn’t have much insight on, despite already spending some good years dedicated to the study of chemistry. It made me realise there’s a much bigger picture and it is clear there’s no right answers for certain issues, we cannot predict or control the future for good and with many good human inventions come drawbacks and even negative impacts to society. Following this was a panel discussion featuring two industry CEOs Dr Martin Brudermüller (BASF) and Dr Ilham Kadri (Solvay), and two academics Professor Rebecca Goss (St. Andrews) and Professor Ben Feringa (Groningen, Nobel Prize laureate). The views from academia vs. industry often contrasted, but concluded with the sense that academia and industry must work together going forward. For academics it’s important to gain funding for ‘blue-sky’ research, and have a system where professors are not overburdened with bureaucracy, and for industry to take risks and support innovation.

We recreated a famous photo from the 1927 Solvay Conference featuring some familiar names – Einstein, Marie-Curie, Planck, Heisenberg, to name a few. (Figure 2) In this moment, I acknowledge it was quite serendipitous for me to be included in this cohort, and hope by attending I could represent the fantastic chemistry students in Ireland.

The day concluded with a dinner in the Cercle Royale Galois and I got the opportunity to have  brief encounter with Nobel Laureate Jean-Marie Lehn. Although I didn’t have much insight to offer regarding supramolecular chemistry his area of expertise, he did recall a few trips to Dublin many years ago.

I left Brussels with some new perspectives; the chemical industry in Europe is extremely vast, multi-faceted, and feeds into every aspect of modern life. Although these industries are where our primary research is eventually channelled to, in academia we often lack insight on current state of affairs, the many layers of how the chemical industry works and impacts society as a whole.

I would like to thank Cefic, all the organisers and participants, and I am grateful for this amazing experience so early on in my studies. If you would like to read more about the event, check out this news article on the Cefic website.

- Kathryn