The UPDICE team would like to congratulate our Co-Investigator, Basile Curchod, in achieving a promotion to Professor. A very well-deserved acknowledgement of his contributions to the University of Bristol!

UPDICE Co-Is Andrew Orr-Ewing and Basile Curchod wrote a perspective article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry A, entitled ‘Perspective on Theoretical and Experimental Advances in Atmospheric Photochemistry’. This Perspective, inspired by the outcomes of a recent CECAM workshop organized by the authors, presents a survey of recent advances in experimental and computational photochemistry and how these modern techniques can contribute to a better understanding of the photochemistry in the Earth’s atmosphere. This Perspective article was also featured on the front cover of the journal.

In June 2024, UPDICE Co-Investigators Prof Helen Fielding (UCL), Prof Mark Brouard (University of Oxford) and Prof Basile Curchod (University of Bristol) ran a workshop for our Postdoctoral Researchers entitled “Academic Career Progression”, which had a specific focus on writing fellowship and grant applications, and creating a narrative C.V. The feedback from the PDRAs was very positive and plans for the next training session are underway.

Patrick Robertson, a PDRA on the UPDICE Programme Grant, has accepted a role at the University of Nottingham. He now leads the Nottingham Ultrafast Reaction Dynamics (NURD) Lab, conducting research into the ultrafast chemistry of molecules and ions in the gas-phase. The UPDICE team wishes Patrick all the best for this new stage in his career.

The UPDICE consortium held its two-day summer meeting at the University of Oxford from 16 – 17 July 2024. Scientific presentations from each Work Package and Cross Cutting Activity described progress on our collaborative projects from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. The photograph above shows the group in the main presentation space at the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub at Jesus College, and below is the poster session at the end of the first day.

Martin Lam (Oxford PDRA, pictured), Claire Vallance (Oxford Co-I), and Helen Fielding (UCL Co-I) presented results of programme grant funded research at MOLEC in Aarhus (1-5 July).

The UPDICE team met at UCL on 11 June. In the morning, Mark Brouard, Basile Curchod, and Helen Fielding offered advice to the UPDICE PDRAs about academic careers. This was followed by an afternoon symposium, ‘Women in Photochemistry’, at which Profesor Jenny Clark (Sheffield), Dr Julia Lehman (Birmingham), Dr Rachel Crespo Otero (UCL), and Dr Cate Anstoter (Edinburgh), talked about their research and career paths. The day ended with a dynamic Q&A session, during which the early career researchers in the audience sought advice from our guest speakers about the challenges faced in establishing an academic career.

The School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol has been awarded Athena Swan Silver, in recognition of its gender equality work. Bristol now joins the departments at our partner institutions – UCL, Imperial and Oxford – in being a recipient of this accolade. Advance HE’s Athena Swan Charter is a framework used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research. The Athena Swan submission was led by UPDICE Co-I Tom Oliver, with the help of the School of Chemistry’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

The UPDICE consortium met in Bristol on the 4^th of April 2024 to discuss advances on the second work package, entitled ‘Photochemistry of molecular chromophores in complex and confining environments’. This meeting was followed by a Theory Workshop on the 5^th of April, during which Graham Worth and Basile Curchod discussed theoretical and computational concepts in photochemistry and spectroscopy.