The Chemistry Department at Lancaster University recently conducted a survey of employers within the Chemical Industry to find out what skills they thought were essential for chemistry graduates to be successful in the working world. Read about the results on our news pages.
Launching in 2023, our MChem with Industrial Placement provides you with an opportunity to employ final year Chemistry students from the summer of 2025
What can you expect from a Lancaster Chemistry student?
There are so many reasons why sponsoring our MChem students could be beneficial to you and your business:
Our brightest students enrol on the MChem degrees
Only students with the highest grades (a minimum of a 2.1 average) are permitted to embark on a placement year, meaning that you will have the choice of only our very best Chemistry students.
We will prepare them for working on your projects
After three years of study and practical work, our students will have more experience than those where the placement is traditionally completed in an earlier study year, meaning that they are well-prepared for working within a fast-paced chemistry industry.
We will support our students throughout the placement
Throughout the year, we will provide support for both our students and our hosts to ensure that both of you have a successful experience.
You get access to the very best of our graduates as potential employees
If the placement goes well, you may wish to offer the candidate a job. A final year placement positions our students to accept job offers and provide continuity in your organisation
How do we prepare our students for placement?
Join our advisory board
As part of the chemistry department's wider engagement agenda, to expand our relationship with industry and to make sure that our research and teaching fully align with industrial needs in the future, we are creating a Chemistry-Industry Advisory Board.
Expected benefits to both parties include:
| For Lancaster University | For Industrial Members |
|---|---|
| Access to potential partners for major initiatives (research, infrastructure, commercialisation) |
Access to university facilities including networks, library resource, and incubator space |
| Industrial contribution to working policies | Access to experts |
| Industrial input to strategic plans | Access to the student base for recruitment |
| Source of Industrial placements UG/PG | Opportunity to influence the educational process in the context of employer requirements |
| Contributor to outreach metrics | Access to laboratories and equipment |
| Contributor to world rankings (private sector income) |
Access to and influence over CPD opportunities for their staff |
| Source of CPD delegates and student sponsorship | Opportunity to sponsor academic staff – e.g. The <<Name of Company>> Chair in <<XXX>> Chemistry |
| Assist with EDI targets (student, staff) and improve research environment |
Access to assistance associated with meeting EDI targets |
If you and your company wish to find out more and become a part of this new initiative, please contact the Chemistry Director of Engagement.
New degree (MChem with Industrial Placement) launch event a success
The Department of Chemistry at Lancaster University celebrated the launch of the new MChem with Industrial Placement degree with a half-day event on the 11th October.
The day was introduced by the Head of the Department with a brief overview of Lancaster Chemistry and showcased the structure of the new programme (talk by the Industrial Placement Coordinator), the support available at Lancaster (talks from the careers and the Students Engagement Team) and through the RSC for students to find and apply for placements, and a fantastic selection of available placements from representatives of different chemical industries (AstraZeneca, Charles Rivers, Syngenta, Sika, Sygnature Discovery, Victrex, Pharmaron and The Vita group).
