Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund

Chemistry at Magdalen and the University of Oxford

Chemistry has a long history at the University of Oxford. The Department of Chemistry is the largest chemistry department in the UK and one of the largest in the western world. Oxford chemists have won at least nine Nobel prizes including Magdalen Fellow Sir Robert Robinson (Chemistry, 1947, for investigations of plant products), Frederic Soddy (Physics, 1921, for his discovery of isotopes), and Dorothy Hodgkin (Chemistry, 1964, for the x-ray structure of penicillin).

One of the earliest notable Magdalen chemists was Charles Daubeny (1795–1867). After studying at Magdalen under John Kidd, Daubeny simultaneously held Chairs in Chemistry, Botany, and Geology. However, interest in the sciences can be traced back to the Magdalen’s founder, William of Waynflete, and it was in his honour that the highly distinguished Waynflete Professorships (in Metaphysical Philosophy, Chemistry, Physiology and Pure Mathematics) were established in 1857. The Waynflete Professor of Chemistry has been the University’s most distinguished Chair in Organic Chemistry ever since, and holders have included Professors Sir Benjamin Brodie, William Odling, William Henry Perkin, Sir Robert Robinson (Nobel Laureate, 1947), Sir Jack Baldwin and the current incumbent, Stephen G Davies.

The present day

Of the 28 Colleges offering Chemistry, Magdalen is one of only five fortunate enough to have a full complement of three Tutorial Fellows in Chemistry: Professors Tim Donohoe (Organic), Andrew Weller (In- organic) and Stuart Mackenzie (Physical and Theoretical Chemistry). Each of these also runs an internation- ally–leading research group in the Department of Chemistry. Magdalen students benefit greatly from the fact that all of their tutorial teaching is performed by College Fellows. Further support comes in the form of a stipendiary lecturer in Maths for Chemistry in recognition of the important role of the first year course. Very few other colleges support their Chemistry undergraduates as well as Magdalen does.

Magdalen typically accepts seven to eight undergraduate chemists per year onto the four-year MChem degree course. The high quality of applicants results in a high–performing and richly diverse cohort of Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund students. In the last five years, 16 Magdalen chemists have been awarded first-class degrees and another 24, 2.1s. Of these, seven have been placed in the top ten in the University cohort of 180, and of the Magdalen cohort who sat Finals in 2018, three currently lie in the top ten going into their Masters research year. 43% of Magdalen chemists have been women, in line with the University average, and well over half (c. 60% in recent years) arrive from state schools either in the UK or from around the world.

The rigours of the Oxford undergraduate Chemistry course, widely acknowledged as the most challenging anywhere, require high levels of organisation which stand students in good stead in other aspects of University life. It is no accident then, that Magdalen chemists also excel in other spheres: as sporting blues (at least five in the last five years including three University team captains), as Captains of Boats (two since 2010), or as University Challenge finalists (three since 2014). One current student has just returned to Oxford from competing in the U23 World Rowing Championship.

Graduate Chemistry at Magdalen

The graduate funding horizon has changed significantly in the last five years as the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) had adopted a model of research training based on Centres for Doctoral Training. This works well in some fields of science but is ill–suited to curiosity driven, blue skies research of the type Professor Clary has performed over his illustrious career.

Magdalen has an annual quota of just four places for graduate-level Chemistry and attracts extremely strong applications from around the world. However, opportunities for funding overseas students are difficult and the absence of funding prevents the College from taking on students undertaking exciting research projects but which do not fall neatly under the doctoral research centres.

Since 2008 we have welcomed:

36 graduate students, from

12 different countries, and

16 different universities Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund

The President, Professor Sir David Clary, FRS

Professor Sir David Clary, FRS is one of the most distinguished and decorated quantum chemists of his generation. Following degrees in Sussex and Cambridge, Sir David was a postdoc at IBM in California and then in Manchester where he started his independent research career as a lecturer at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). He moved to Cambridge in 1983 as a lecturer, then reader, in Theoretical Chemistry and Fellow at Magdalene College. In 1996 he moved to University College London as Director of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry and then to Oxford as Head of the Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division. He was appointed President of Magdalen College in 2005 and was the first Chief Scientific Advisor to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2009-13.

Sir David’s research involves applications of quantum mechanics to the understanding of the rates of chemical reactions, energy transfer and molecular dynamics. The high quality, intellectually-demanding, blue skies research and theories Sir David has developed find applications in the unusual chemistry of the interstellar medium where low temperatures and infrequent collisions would normally choke off reactivity. Given the importance of quantum mechanics in all of Sir David’s work, it is a beautiful quirk of fate that the President’s private office in Magdalen is the very room in which Erwin Schrödinger, one of Sir David’s scientific heroes, took the telephone call informing him that he’d won the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics for his famous wave equation. Very appropriately, the latest building at our Science Park is named after Schrödinger.

Sir David’s work has been recognised with many awards and prizes. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1997 at an unusually young age, and in the same year Cambridge University bestowed a Doctorate of Science on him. He has won numerous Royal Society of Chemistry Awards, including the distinguished Tilden Prize, the Liversidge Award, the Polanyi Medal and the Chemical Dynamics Award, and is a Foreign Honorary Member of the US National Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1989 he received the medal of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, and was knighted for services to international science in the 2016.

Sir David with current and former members of his chemistry research group. Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund

Our aim

The College wishes now to establish, in the names of Sir David and Lady Clary, a fund to endow graduate studentships enabling the very brightest students to undertake intellectually-demanding, blue skies research at Magdalen.

It would provide graduate research scholarships in the first instance and would allow us to select from among the very best Chemistry students working on projects that fall outside the usual narrowly-defined fields and might change how we think about science. The fund could also provide for undergraduate fourth-year research bursaries for Chemistry students whose projects extend well beyond traditional Oxford terms. The annual spend each year would be determined by the Chemistry Fellows in consultation with the Senior Tutor.

Our aim would be to secure an endowment of £1-2 million. Currently, around £25k per annum is necessary to fully fund a graduate scholarship in Chemistry. This fund will ideally provide 2-3 scholarships at any one time. If we achieve our aspirational £2 million goal, it would generate around £70k each year and provide the flexibility to offer several awards for students.

Most importantly, this fund will allow alumni and friends of the College a wonderful opportunity not only to support students but to recognise and honour the contributions Sir David and Lady Clary have made to the life of Magdalen College over the past 15 years.

In numbers:

£2,000,000 - our fundraising goal

£70,000- amount generated each year from £2m endowment

£25,000 - cost to fund a graduate scholarship

2-3 - the number of graduate scholarships we hope to support each year Sir David and Lady Clary Chemistry Fund