Nottingham University is attracting entrepreneurial chemists with a new MSc in Chemistry with Entrepreneurship, launched this week.

Nottingham University is attracting entrepreneurial chemists with a new MSc in Chemistry with Entrepreneurship, launched this week. 

The course was set up in response to industry’s need for chemistry graduates with a business ’edge’ and an understanding of applying knowledge to the commercial environment. It has been designed to give students knowledge in leading-edge chemistry and will give them the necessary information on the financial, marketing and managerial aspects of commerce. It will cover topics such as ’ethics and responsibility in business’, ’globalisation in the chemical industry - challenge or threat’, and ’green chemistry; financial and environmental win-win’. Industrialists and Nottingham staff will be giving lectures for the module ’From bench to the bank’. 

The programme was launched with a ?250 000 grant from the Gatsby Charitable Trust to the Unit’s director Mike Healy. Healy says: ’We produce some very fine young scientists and engineers, and by adding a layer of business expertise to these skills, we are building a foundation for the continued success of chemistry and its contribution to UK plc.’

This masters is the latest addition to a strong culture of science-business activities at Notthingham. Almost a decade ago, the school of chemistry established a Business Partnership Unit, from which spin-out companies such as Critical Pharmaceuticals and CellAura have emerged. In addition, post-doctoral chemists can enrol in the Unit’s Business-Science Fellowship programme for a year, where they develop business skills and take a technology transfer project to market. Fiona Salvage