• News and events home
• News
• Events
• Features
• Press Office contacts

Salters to fund chair in chemical education at York

Posted on 29 April 1998

The Salters Institute of Industrial Chemistry, the educational arm of the Salters Livery Company, and the University of York announce that the University has agreed to set up a new Salters Chair of Chemical Education in the department of Chemistry. The new professor will take up his or her post on 1 January 2000, and the post will be jointly funded by the University of York and the Salters Company for an initial period of five years with the possibility of a period of renewal after that date. The Institute has also decided to fun the two existing Salters Fellows for a further five years and has arranged funding for the development of the Salters Horners Advanced Physics project. The total funding for the Group from Salters will exceed 800,000 over the next few years.

The Salters Institute has sponsored the development at York of the highly successful range of Salters Science courses by Professor Waddington and the Science Education Group since the early 1980s, jointly with industrial companies. Some 40,000 students now take the Salters GCSE courses each year and already over 4,000 students are taking the Salters A Level Chemistry course launched in 1990. These courses are also being widely used overseas, especially in the USA.

The Science Education Group is currently developing the Salters/Horners A Level Physics course which is due to be launched in 2000. Both this and other courses have attracted other industrial sponsorship.

"The new Chair is a particularly appropriate way of celebrating the Millennium," said Mr Richard Homan CBE, Chairman of the Salter's Institute of Industrial Chemistry. "It is the best way to carry forward our long and successful collaboration with the University of York on science curriculum development and to support further the outstanding work in teaching and research in the department of Chemistry."

Professor Ron Cooke, Vice-Chancellor of the University of York said: "The generous support of the Salters Company for our Science Education Group has allowed us to establish one of the leading centres for science education in Britain and, indeed, internationally. The Centre's numerous successes have included the important Salters Curricula for A Level Chemistry and GCSE Science which are now taken each year by thousands of students in the UK and abroad.

"The Institute's decision to fund the Salters Chair in Chemical Education and the two Salters Research Fellows will ensure the continuing success of the Group well into the next century. The University is most grateful for the Company's continued and enthusiastic support for this internationally important exercise."