MEMBER NEWS
SCI SCOTLAND GROUP COMPETITION
Driving my career through the SCI
Dr David Witty is one of three recipients of this year’s Distinguished Service Awards (DSA). The DSAs are presented to members of the Society who have con- tributed significant and sustained ser- vice to SCI for ten years or more. Here, Dr Witty talks about his involvement with SCI, as a highly valued committee mem- ber of our Fine Chemicals Group, since 2003, and as chair of the newly formed Membership Committee.
When and why did you become a member of SCI? I first joined SCI during the 1990s after I had come back to the UK from a post-doc in the US. At that stage, I was an employee of SmithKline Beecham – later GSK – and was encouraged to take advantage of the reduced rate for members to attend one-day meetings.
Why did you decide to get involved in committee work? Two separate events influenced my interest in becoming involved in SCI’s Fine Chemicals Group (FCG). I had attended a one-day FCG meeting on carbohydrate chemistry at SCI’s headquarters in Belgrave Square and was at the post-meeting wine mixer, in discussion with a speaker, when I heard the organiser – Chris Hill, who was then at Roche – asking people to gather for dinner. I hadn’t realised this was for the speakers only, so I impertinently asked whether this was something I could attend! Remarkably Chris, who later became the FCG chair, invited me along and spent the evening telling me about how, if I joined the team, I could help create future meetings. At the same time, my work at GSK had hit a bit of a dead-end and I felt I was having little influence within the department, so joining the FCG seemed like a way in which I could have a useful impact professionally.
What has driven your continued involvement with SCI? The first event I organised
as meeting chair was on electronic notebooks. This was a resounding success and I was encouraged to look at different areas of science affecting chemists and the What a chemist needs to know about... series of meetings was born. After that, I guess I just got the bug. I wouldn’t have stayed with the FCG though, had the team not been such an interesting and brilliant group of people to work with.
How has being involved in SCI activities had an impact on your professional career? So many ways really – knowing the movers and shakers in the business has helped with my other professional interest as a journal editor, but I particularly valued membership when I launched a new company and needed to contact potential business partners. It meant that I already had a link with almost every relevant science organisation.
What are your thoughts about receiving the Distinguished Service Award? It is a real honour to receive this award having been nominated by my peers in the FCG. Nothing I have achieved for SCI could have happened without the dedicated support of that group, which today remains as strong, innovative, and influential as it has been through all the time I’ve known it. Long may that continue!
For the full interview please see:
bit.ly/2zairvl
For full details
and to sign up to the
competition, visit
bit.ly/ SCIdea2018
UPDATE
Bright SCIdea Challenge
This year sees the launch of the Bright SCIdea challenge – a new business plan- ning competition – encouraging UK/ROI university students to think about the process of starting their own business or launching a new product. In November 2017, the first training videos featur- ing Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, founder of Genius Gluten Free; Victor Christou, CEO of Cambridge Innovation Capital; and Georgia Lubbock, product manager at Synthomer, were released. Finalists will be invited to London in
early 2018 to pitch their ideas to a panel of high-profile judges, allowing them to raise their profile within the commercial scientific community, whilst competing for a chance to win a £1,000 cash prize. Both SCI and our ambassadors have
been busy promoting the competi- tion; James Womack, a post-doctoral researcher and SCI Ambassador, recently organised an SCI exhibition stall and sev- eral short, introductory talks about the Bright SCIdea Challenge at his university – Southampton. Womack said that the Challenge is ‘a
great opportunity for all entrants to ob- tain some free business training and to hone their entrepreneurial and science communication skills. Even small acts of promotion for events such as Bright SCIdea can be very valuable. ‘The main draw of being an SCI am- bassador is the chance to give something back to SCI after having received support through my PhD with an SCI Scholarship,’ he added. The concept was conceived in an SCI
College of Scholars’ Day workshop in 2015 by James Adams and Hibaaq Moha- mud – PhD researchers at the University of Manchester and the National Physical Laboratory, respectively. Teams at the workshop then had to pitch to a panel of the SCI managerial committee and business leaders. Adams explained that, after the event, Robin Harrison from Syn- thomer approached him and Hibaaq, and offered £1,000 to get the event running. ‘One of the best things about being
involved with SCI, and this project, is that you have the chance to implement an idea. It’s been a fantastic experience and very rewarding to see an idea put into practice. I can’t wait to attend the final talks and see what SCIdeas people have come up with.’
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