A Holistic Doctoral Training Centre for Chemical Synthesis

化学合成（CS）是现代社会所依赖的一个领域，因为它可以定制制造产品，这些产品是生活和社会中无处不在的材料。这些包括新药物、新材料和聚合物、纳米材料，以及我们生活的质地和质量所依赖的大量精细和有效的化学物质。没有未来化学科学的核心发展，英国的plc和社会进步将停滞不前，并在竞争激烈的现代世界中落后。我们现在计划培养新一代世界一流的博士生，使英国化学工业能够保持其在世界上的竞争地位，作为一个高度创新和创造性研究的地方。CS最难的一个方面是掌握成为专业化学家所需的大量“合成工具箱”技术。完美的化学家应该类似于技艺高超的F1机械师，拥有最先进的工具箱和从零开始设计和制造的能力——如果你喜欢的话，可以是分子机械师。然而，在现实中，学生往往过于狭隘地专注于一个特定的综合领域，结果可能会以预算工具包和有限的经验告终。我们希望通过采用一种新的“整体”研究方法来探索CS，这种方法将与革命性的电子学习框架相结合，这种方式在化学领域以前没有被阐明过。与传统的“一个PI -一个学生-一个想法”计划不同，我们希望汇集一群来自有机，无机，物理和理论背景的国际知名化学家，汇集他们的技能，以便从头开始设计新的有用的化学合成解决方案。我们在布里斯托尔的研究机会小组（ROG）正是通过将化学学科内外的工作人员聚集在一起，根据我们的需求以头脑风暴的形式讨论潜在的研究领域。我们发现这是非常有效的，并导致了在传统方法中根本不会开花结果的新研究。现在，我们希望将我们的ROG理念和工作方式灌输给我们的学生。我们的目标是让这些学生把他们的研究作为一个集体来思考，而不是作为孤立的个人在不同的研究小组中工作。这样做的好处将是巨大的，尤其是他们将在彼此项目的设计中发挥积极作用，并接触到广泛而经验丰富的管理经验。培训经验的关键将是设计和实施一个革命性的电子学习资源，称为研究生动态实验室手册（pgDLM）。pgDLM将允许学生在实验室体验之前进行一个基本的，通常是复杂的实验技术的虚拟版本，从而在他们真正进行实验之前对实验有更深入的了解。通过创建一个具有不断发展的在线技术库的pgDLM，我们不仅可以使学生自信地接受新技术，同时还可以建立一个宝贵的资源，供学术界和工业界的所有CS从业者使用。工业界将在确定可持续发展技术委员会的重点和当代相关性方面发挥关键作用，并将在指导小组中广泛代表。这些外部顾问将在项目选择和评价方面发挥积极作用，并将参加培训方案。通过从一开始就生产合适的产品并与工业伙伴密切合作，csDTC将能够很好地利用外部支持来维持中心在EPSRC资助期之后的发展。通过这一愿景，我们的目标是培养新一代的工业和学术领袖，并通过实现这一目标，确保布里斯托尔成为化学合成的首要中心。

Chemical Synthesis (CS) is an area upon which much of modern society relies as it enables the customized fabrication of products that are the ubiquitous materials of life and society. These include new drugs and medicines, new materials and polymers, nanomaterials, and a vast range of fine and effect chemicals on which the texture and quality of our lives depend. Without future core developments in the chemical sciences, UK plc and societal progress will stall and be left behind in a ferociously competitive modern world. We now plan to train a new generation of world-class PhD students so that the UK chemical industry can maintain its competitive position in the world as a place for highly innovative and creative research. One of the hardest aspects of CS is mastery of the vast 'synthetic tool box' of techniques required to become a professional chemist. The perfect chemist would be akin to highly skilled F1 mechanic with a state of the art toolbox and the ability to design and engineer from scratch - a molecular mechanic if you like. However in reality a student is often focussed too narrowly towards a particular area of synthesis and as a result can end up with a budget toolkit and a limited range of experience. We wish to explore CS by adopting a new 'Holistic' research approach that will be integrated with a revolutionary e-learning framework in a way that has not been previously articulated in the field of Chemistry. Instead of a traditional 'one PI - one-student - one idea' programme, we wish to bring together a group of internationally renowned chemists from organic, inorganic, physical and theoretical backgrounds to pool their skills in order to design from the ground up new and useful solutions for chemical synthesis. Our Research Opportunities Group (ROG) at Bristol does exactly this by bringing together staff from across and outside the chemistry discipline to discuss potential research areas in a Brainstorming format customized to our needs. We have found that this has been highly effective and has led to new research that simply would not have blossomed in a traditional approach. We now wish to instill our ROG philosophy and modus operandi into our students. Our aim is to get these students to think about their research as a collective rather than as isolated individuals working in separate research groups. The benefits of this will be enormous, not least in that they will all play an active role in the design of each-others projects as well as being exposed to a pool of supervisory experience of great breadth and experience. Key to the training experience will be the design and implementation of a revolutionary e-learning resource called the postgraduate Dynamic Laboratory Manual (pgDLM). The pgDLM will allow students to carry out a virtual version of an essential, often complex, experimental technique before experiencing it in the laboratory thus gaining a much deeper understanding of an experiment before they carry it out for real . By creating a pgDLM with an evolving library of online techniques we will not only enable students to embrace new techniques confidently but also simultaneously establish a valuable resource which will be made available to all practitioners of CS in both academe and industry. Industry will play a key role in defining the focus and contemporary relevance of the csDTC and will be broadly represented on a Steering Group. These external advisors will play an active role in project selection, assessment and will participate in the training programme. By producing the right product and working closely with industrial partners from the outset, the csDTC will be well positioned to leverage external support to sustain the Centre beyond the EPSRC funding period. Through this vision we aim to produce a new generation of industrial and academic leaders and, by delivering this goal, secure Bristol as a premier centre for Chemical Synthesis.