National Training Schools in Theoretical Chemistry, 2012 and 2014

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Graduate-level training is an essential component of doctoral research, providing the basic core from which novel research springs. This is particularly important in the theoretically-centred physical sciences, where the intellectual level and technical expertise required to pursue effective doctoral research increases significantly in comparison to typical undergraduate study.In theoretical and computational chemistry, however, only a modest number of UK universities possess the critical mass of academic staff needed to provide key training across a broad spectrum of the subject. The present proposal thus seeks to provide a UK-wide training capability in theoretical chemistry, via the creation of National Training Schools to be held in summer 2012 and 2014. These will bring together a cohort of doctoral students from across the country and, in the two-week timespan of an individual Training School, will expose students to sustained, coherent training in fundamental graduate-level material, across a broad spectrum of contemporary theoretical/computational chemistry.The Schools will consist of structured lecture courses, delivered by a team of eight experts from five UK universities; together with accompanying problem classes/tutorials designed not only to back up the lectures, but in particular to sharpen students' problem-solving skills -- a key element of doctoral research. The training provided will thus provide significant underpinning of, and thereby benefit to, individual student's doctoral research programmes. And exposure of a national cohort of students to such training will in turn benefit the quality of doctoral research across the UK.