Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11
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1 11 chemistry-research-in-finland
3.5 Organic chemistry
All universities in the evaluation are pursuing research and teaching in the field of organic chemistry. This is very valuable, since organic chemistry has a key role in chemical and molecular sciences. Although not all universities have a separate 28 laboratory or other organisational unit, the subfield contributes to both educational programmes and the overall external funding of universities. The level of instrumentation for organic chemistry research is at present good or very good, with all evaluated units having access to suitable major instruments, for example modern or quite modern nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, in addition to less expensive equipment. There is a concern that not enough funding will be present in the future for maintaining and possibly also further improving the current level of instrumental infrastructures, which is essential in order to keep up with the international competition. The panel recommends that researchers, universities and funding agencies jointly develop sustainable strategies for both major and minor instrument maintenance and investments. Several research units or subunits are applying organic chemistry methods to certain groups of starting materials, and polymer and non-polymer wood origins are not uncommon. A common objective is to produce fine chemicals of interest to bioscience applications or to obtain knowledge of macromolecular structure. This general area of research has a long and successful tradition, and the research quality spans from excellent to acceptable. Wood-related chemistry with strong organic components is abundant in Finland, and the panel recommends that the actors strategically consider whether all current wood chemistry is correctly placed. The units’ activities aiming at the determination of functional properties of other molecular, biomolecular and supramolecular systems using advanced spectroscopic, spectrometric and crystallographic methods are strong. The quality of these activities is excellent or outstanding particularly at units with high competence in both organic synthesis and advanced characterisation techniques. Fundamental methods development and synthetic organic chemistry – the platform for all applications – are present but not equally strong at the evaluated units. Although the panel recognises that the active and mutually beneficial collaborations between the research units and chemical companies explain the focus on applied rather than basic research, this is a field that needs to become more proactive. From an international perspective, several units are performing excellently but on too small total budgets. The panel recommends that activities in both fundamental and applied organic chemistry be strengthened at these units. Some of the cross-disciplinary applied research at the evaluated units has international visibility, as has the highly fundamental research in methods development and new trends in catalysis. A common denominator for these units is a regular presence of international postdoctoral researchers, active for 1–2-year periods each and with worldwide recruitment. Download 0.72 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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