Complex Chemical Systems Platform Exploring Inorganic Intelligence

我们的愿景是通过定义关键的基础科学问题，并通过培养具备探索这一新兴科学领域的正确技能的研究人员，来建立无机智能的新领域。克罗宁小组在这项研究的基础方面做出了世界领先的贡献，现在我们需要探索、统一和发展一些中心科学问题。其中包括如何使用机器人和实时数据来探索和控制以及理解复杂的化学系统。我们预计，这四个主题的协调发展将导致各种应用，如纳米分子的自组装控制、化学合成和发现自动化或反应的人工智能(AI)优化以及探索和发现新的基础原理。新的赠款将继续统一和发展在前一个平台期间已经建立的协同作用，但最重要的是确保连续性和稳定性。这将使团队从专注于无机系统发展到对复杂化学系统的数字控制和探索。新平台不仅将有助于统一团队中现有的许多分支，还将允许扩展到包括机器人学、机器学习在内的新学科，并在这些领域发展协同效应--这些主题的组合很少合并，因此使用其他机制筹集资金极其困难。因此，新的平台对于研究活动的继续和发展是必不可少的，它为整合集团提供了额外的价值，使我们能够具有战略眼光，并将团队发展到选定的新领域，定义“无机智能”领域。上一笔赠款有助于我们扩大我们的临界质量，加强现有的关键国际合作，并支持格拉斯哥的小组间合作，这使我们能够推测和发展我们在化学机器人方面的探索性工作。此外，我们可以灵活地支持和进一步巩固一些现有的团队，聘请新的专业人员，以及在EPSRC导师计划的帮助下重组团队。我们需要新的平台来继续我们的团队发展，并提供稳定性和灵活性，这在未来几年尤其重要。一如既往，我们将致力于将我们的最佳结果发表在《科学与自然》杂志上，通过专利申请来保护创新，并吸引用户群体和实业家以及其他世界领先的学者来最大化学术和技术影响。这将通过充分利用各种来源的资金来实现，针对需要利用该平台作为一个综合组成部分进行开发的领域。我们还将在平台内播种“Pump-Prime”项目，提供过渡性资金，并准备好利用意想不到的高影响成果。该平台将确保该组织在关键时刻保持临界质量，并在一系列新领域处于科学的前沿。

Our vision is to establish the new field of inorganic intelligence by defining the key fundamental science problems, and by developing researchers equipped with the right skills to explore this emerging area of science. The Cronin Group has made world-leading contributions to foundational aspects of this research and now we need to explore, unify, and develop some of the central science problems. These include how to explore and control, and understand complex chemical systems using robotics and real-time data. We anticipate that the coordinated development of these four topics will lead into applications as diverse as self-assembly control in nano molecules, chemical synthesis and discovery automation or artificial intelligence (AI) optimisation of reactions and exploration and discovery of new underpinning principles. The new grant will continue to unify and develop synergies already established during the previous Platform, but most importantly will ensure continuity and stability. This will enable the team to evolve from focusing on inorganic systems to the digital control and exploration of complex chemical systems. The new Platform will not only contribute to unify the many strands already existing in the team, but will also allow an extension to new disciplines including robotics, machine learning, and development of synergies across those areas - a combination of topics very rarely merged and hence extremely hard to raise funding using other mechanisms. Thus, the new Platform is essential for continuation and the evolution of the research activity, giving added value in integrating the group, allowing us to be strategic and develop the team into the chosen new areas defining the area of 'inorganic intelligence'. The previous grant was instrumental in letting us extend our critical mass, enhance key existing international collaborations, and support inter-group collaborations in Glasgow, which allowed us to speculate and develop our exploratory work in chemical robotics. In addition, we had the flexibility to support and further consolidate some of the existing team, and to hire in new expertise, as well as restructure the team with help from the EPSRC mentor scheme. We need the new platform to continue our team development and provide stability and flexibility especially important during the next few years. As before, we will aim for our best results to be published in Science and Nature, protect innovations by patent applications, and engage a user group and industrialists as well as other world-leading academics to maximise both the academic and technological impact. This will be achieved by making full use of funding from various sources, aiming at areas that need to be developed using the Platform as a consolidating component. We will also seed 'pump-prime' projects within the Platform, provide bridging funding, and be ready to exploit unexpected and high impact results. The Platform will ensure the group remains at critical mass at a critical time, and at the cutting edge of science in a range of new areas.