National Training Schools in Theoretical Chemistry, 2012 and 2014

研究生水平的培训是博士研究的重要组成部分，提供了创新研究的基本核心。这在以理论为中心的物理科学中尤其重要，与典型的本科生相比，从事有效的博士研究所需的智力水平和技术专长显著提高。然而，在理论和计算化学领域，只有少数英国大学拥有在广泛领域提供关键培训所需的临界数量的学术人员。因此，本提案寻求通过创建将于2012年夏季和2014年夏季举行的国家培训学校，在全英国范围内提供理论化学培训能力。这些培训学校将汇集来自全国各地的博士生，在一个单独的培训学校的两周时间内，将让学生接受持续、连贯的基础研究生水平材料的培训，涵盖当代理论/计算化学的广泛范围。培训学校将包括结构化的讲座课程，由来自英国五所大学的八名专家组成的团队讲授；以及附带的问题课程/教程，其设计不仅是为了支持讲座，而且特别是为了提高学生解决问题的技能--这是博士研究的关键要素。因此，所提供的培训将为个别学生的博士研究计划提供重要的基础，并因此受益。而让一批全国性的学生接受这样的培训，反过来又会有利于整个英国的博士研究质量。

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.