 | |
| Formation | 1881 |
|---|---|
| Type | Learned society |
| Headquarters | London |
| Location |
|
Official language | English |
President | Paul Drechsler [1] |
| Website | www |
The Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) is a learned society set up in 1881 "to further the application of chemistry and related sciences for the public benefit". [2]
The society's headquarters is in Belgrave Square, London. There are semi-independent branches in the United States, Canada and Australia.
The society aims to accelerate the rate of scientific innovations being commercialised by industry to benefit society. It does this through promoting collaborations between scientists and industrialists, running technical and innovation conferences, building communities across academia and industry and publishing scientific content through its journals and digital platforms.
It also promotes science education. [3]
On 21 November 1879, Lancashire chemist John Hargreaves canvassed a meeting of chemists and managers in Widnes, St Helens and Runcorn to consider the formation of a chemical society. Modelled on the successful Tyne Chemical Society already operating in Newcastle, the newly proposed South Lancashire Chemical Society held its first meeting on 29 January 1880 in Liverpool, with the eminent industrial chemist and soda manufacturer Ludwig Mond presiding.
It was quickly decided that the society should not be limited to just the local region and the title 'the Society of Chemical Industry’ was finally settled upon at a meeting in London on 4 April 1881, as being 'more inclusive'. Held at the offices of the Chemical Society, now the headquarters of the Royal Society of Chemistry, in Burlington House, this meeting was presided over by Henry Roscoe, appointed first president of SCI, [4] and attended by Eustace Carey, Ludwig Mond, FA Abel, Lowthian Bell, William H Perkin, Walter Weldon, Edward Rider Cook, Thomas Tyrer and George E Davis; all prominent scientists, industrialists and MPs of the time.
The society grew rapidly, launching international and regional sections. In 1881 Ivan Levinstein was a founder of the Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, later following Sir Henry Roscoe as chair of the Section. Levinstein also served as president of the Society of Chemical Industry between 1901 and 1903. [5]
Prominent early members included William Lever, George Matthey, Ludwig Mond, Henry Armstrong, Leo Baekeland, Rudolph Messel, Charles Tennant, Richard Seligman, Ferdinand Hurter and Marie Stopes.
The original membership fee was very steep for the time: The first subscription fee was set at one guinea, which would be equivalent to nearly £400 today. Four grades of membership were agreed at the time: member, associate, student and honorary, with most appointments made on the basis of a review of their 'eligibility' by the SCI council. Despite the high fee, by the time of the first official meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry in June 1881, it had attracted over 300 members.
An Extraordinary General Meeting was held on 27 March 1906, under the direction of president Edward Divers and secretary C. G. Cresswell, to discuss a motion to apply for incorporation under a royal charter. The resolution was formally proposed by Sir (Thomas) Boverton Redwood. After some discussion, the motion was unanimously supported. [6] The society was formally incorporated, by Royal Charter, as of 17 June 1907, and its bylaws were published in the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry. By that time, it had expanded to include a number of satellite chapters, including Canada, New South Wales, New York and New England as well as locations within Great Britain. [7]
The first headquarters of the newly fledged Society of Chemical Industry was established in 1881 at Palace Chambers, [8] Bridge Street, Westminster, London. After a series of changes of address, the society finally moved to its fifth and present location at 14/15 – and initially 16 – Belgrave Square in 1955. Owned by the Duke of Westminster, along with the rest of Belgravia, the building was and still is part of the Grosvenor Estate and had recently been commandeered by the Ministry of Defence during World War II. The former Nazi commander Rudolf Hess is believed to have been interrogated in the building after he flew to Britain late in the war.
SCI organises over 100 conferences and events per year which are focused on cutting edge scientific and special interest subjects. These are primarily organised through SCI member-led technical, international and regional interest groups.[ citation needed ]
SCI runs free Public Evening Lectures, [9] both at its headquarters as well as online, through its SCITalks! programme.
The society has an extensive awards programmes designed to raise awareness of the benefits of the practical application of chemistry and related sciences across scientific disciplines and industrial sectors. The SCI also confers scholarships and travel bursaries to student members, and celebrates accomplished scientists, educators and business people through a number of international awards, medals, and lectureships.
International groups include:
The society publishes a number of peer-reviewed scientific journals in conjunction with John Wiley & Sons:
SCI also publishes the well-established magazine Chemistry & Industry (C&I). [10]
Chemistry & Industry was launched by the society in 1923. From 1923 it has documented the advancements in chemistry and related science and the inventions being developed by large companies and start ups. It covers a diverse set of technologies and application areas and it is widely read across the community and is circulated internationally.
The society has an extensive awards and honours programme.
The Honours programme was established in 1996 and is designed to raise awareness of the benefits of the practical application of chemistry and related sciences across scientific disciplines and industrial sectors and to celebrate accomplished scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs through a number of international awards, medals, and lectureships.
The most prestigious honours are the Society Medals, of which there are around 12, and these recognise those who exhibit leadership in promoting the objectives and values of the society. The Society Medals are awarded to persons who have made significant contributions in the field of chemical sciences, innovation and entrepreneurship. [11] [12]
Justus Freiherr von Liebig was a German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biological chemistry; he is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at the University of Giessen, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the most outstanding chemistry teachers of all time. He has been described as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his emphasis on nitrogen and minerals as essential plant nutrients, and his popularization of the law of the minimum, which states that plant growth is limited by the scarcest nutrient resource, rather than the total amount of resources available. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and with his consent a company, called Liebig Extract of Meat Company, was founded to exploit the concept; it later introduced the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. He popularized an earlier invention for condensing vapors, which came to be known as the Liebig condenser.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related fields. It is one of the world's largest scientific societies by membership. The ACS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., and it has a large concentration of staff in Columbus, Ohio.
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the Faraday Society, and the Society for Analytical Chemistry with a new Royal Charter and the dual role of learned society and professional body. At its inception, the Society had a combined membership of 34,000 in the UK and a further 8,000 abroad.
Ludwig Mond FRS was a German-born British chemist and industrialist. He discovered an important, previously unknown, class of compounds called metal carbonyls.
Jean M.J. Fréchet is a French-American chemist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his work on polymers including polymer-supported chemistry, chemically amplified photoresists, dendrimers, macroporous separation media, and polymers for therapeutics. Ranked among the top 10 chemists in 2021, he has authored nearly 900 scientific paper and 200 patents including 96 US patents. His research areas include organic synthesis and polymer chemistry applied to nanoscience and nanotechnology with emphasis on the design, fundamental understanding, synthesis, and applications of functional macromolecules.
Tobin Jay Marks is an inorganic chemistry Professor, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry, Professor of Material Science and Engineering, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Professor of Applied Physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Among the themes of his research are synthetic organo-f-element and early-transition metal organometallic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials chemistry, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, molecule-based photonic materials, superconductivity, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, and biological aspects of transition metal chemistry.
Charles Frederick Chandler was an American chemist, best known for his regulatory work in public health, sanitation, and consumer safety in New York City, as well as his work in chemical education—first at Union College and then, for the majority of his career, at Columbia University, where he taught in the Chemical Department, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and served as the first Dean of Columbia University's School of Mines.
Christopher David Garner FRSC FRS is a British retired chemist, whose research work was in the growing field of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. His research primarily focussed on the role of transition metal elements in biological processes, for which he published over 400 original papers and reviews on the topic. His specific interests lie in the roles of Molybdenum and Tungsten as the metal centres in various enzyme cofactors based on the molybdopterin molecule.
Paul T. Anastas is an American scientist, inventor, author, entrepreneur, professor, and public servant. He is the Director of Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, Previously he served as the Science Advisor to the United States Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Agency's Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, appointed by President Barack Obama.
Peidong Yang is a Chinese–American chemist, material scientist, and businessman. He is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Materials Science. His research group studies the synthesis of nanomaterials and their electronic and optical properties. He is also a Department Head at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Deputy Director of the Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems (COINS). He is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, an American Chemical Society Journal.
Ayyappanpillai Ajayaghosh is a research scientist/academician in the domain of interdisciplinary chemistry, and the former Director of the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology. He is known for his studies on supramolecular assemblies, organogels, photoresponsive materials, chemosensory and security materials systems and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Chemical Sciences in 2007. He is the first chemist to receive the Infosys Science Prize for physical sciences, awarded by the Infosys Science Foundation. He received the TWAS Prize of The World Academy of Sciences in 2013 and the Goyal prize in 2019.
Teri W. Odom is an American chemist and materials scientist. She is the chair of the chemistry department, the Joan Husting Madden and William H. Madden, Jr. Professor of Chemistry, and a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. She is affiliated with the university's International Institute for Nanotechnology, Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, and department of applied physics.
The Polish Chemical Society is a professional learned society of Polish chemists founded in 1919 to represent the interests of Polish chemists on the local, national and international levels.
David Parker is an English chemist, Chair Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Durham.
The Society of Chemical Industry (America Section) or SCI America is an independent learned society inspired by the creation of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in London in 1881. Originally known as the New York Section, it was formed in 1894 and officially renamed the America Section in 1919. The main activity of the America Section is the awarding of several prizes in chemistry: the Perkin Medal, the Chemical Industry Medal and the Gordon E. Moore Medal. The America Section also works with the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) to support underserved and Black scholars in chemistry and chemical engineering.
Tuticorin Raghavachari Govindachari FNA, FASc (1915–2001), popularly known as TRG, was an Indian natural product chemist, academic, institution builder and the principal of Presidency College, Chennai. He was known for his studies on the synthesis of isoquinolines and phenanthridines and his contributions in elucidating the structure of several plant constituents. He was an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy and was the nominator of Robert Burns Woodward who won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1960, for his contributions to chemical sciences, making him the first recipient of the award in the chemical sciences category.
Murali Sastry is an Indian material chemist, nanomaterial scientist and the chief executive officer of the IITB-Monash Research Academy. He is a former chief scientist at Tata Chemicals and a former senior scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory. He is known for his studies on surfaces, films and materials chemistry and is an elected fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2002, for his contributions to chemical sciences.
The Société de Chimie Industrielle is an independent learned society inspired by the creation of the Société de Chimie Industrielle in Paris in 1917. The American Section was formed on January 18, 1918, and held its first meeting on April 4, 1918.
Douglas Wade Stephan is professor of Chemistry at the University of Toronto, a post he has held since 2008.
Ivan Levinstein (1845-1916) was a German-born British chemist who pioneered the manufacture of synthetic dyes and helped develop the British chemical industry in the late nineteenth century. He was born in Charlottenburg, Germany, the son of a Berlin Calico manufacturer, studied chemistry at the Gewerbeinstitut, which later became Technische Universität Berlin, before joining the family business. He obtained his first patent in Germany in 1863 for improvements in manufacturing coal tar dyes.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
