Welcome

EaStCHEM, the joint Chemistry Research School of Edinburgh and St. Andrews funded by the Scottish Funding Council for Further and Higher Education, the Office of Science and Technology and the parent Universities, is the premier Chemistry research school for Chemistry in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK, with around 500 researchers. EaStCHEM expands the proud Chemistry tradition of Edinburgh and St Andrews.

The vibrant research activity relies on world-class academic staff, postgraduate research fellows, a large, well resourced graduate school and high class research support facilities and infrastructure, available both internally and externally. Our activities span fundamental and applied chemical research, and we are major partners in collaboration with other disciplines and with industrial partners.

EaStCHEM has four main research areas; The Chemistry/Biology Interface, Experimental and Theoretical Chemical Physics, Synthesis and Materials Chemistry. These areas underpin major initiatives in Chemistry for Health, In Silico Scotland, Innovative Synthesis and New Materials.

• Director of EaStCHEM: Professor Derek Woollins
• Deputy Director of EaStCHEM: Professor Eleanor Campbell

Chemistry in the East of Scotland has shot to the top of the latest UK league table, in the most important analysis of research outputs for seven years.

EastChem the SFC research pooling partnership in Chemistry between St Andrews and Edinburgh Universities has scored highest in Scotland in the latest RAE announced on 18th December 2009. The EastChem partners submitted 75% of all world leading outputs (4*) in Scotland and 12% of world leading outputs in all of the UK. From 32 submissions EastChem was the largest in UK Chemistry. The research School comes 4th in the GPA metric and first when staff volume is factored in (the power ranking), sitting above Oxford and Cambridge.

Quality GPA x staff numbers ranking

1. EastChem
2. University of Oxford
3. University of Cambridge
4. University of Bristol

(Out of 32)

Quality GPA

1. University of Cambridge
2. University of Nottingham
3. University of Oxford
4. EastChem

(Out of 32)

This is an outstanding performance and demonstrates world class breadth and depth in the chemical sciences in the East of Scotland. The spectacular rise in research quality as judged by peer review, is a result of a sustained commitment by the respective Universities and the Scottish Funding Council in supporting excellence in chemistry over the last five years. It also reflects the dedication and commitment of many academics, support staff and their students in suceeding in ground breaking research over a wide range of challenging programmes.