Is Lack of Innovation Causing Image Problem for Chemistry?

The chemistry industry has an innovation problem. At least that’s according to a survey of 186 chemists from academia and industry completed recently by Elsevier’s Reaxys, a web-based chemical data retrieval tool. An overwhelming majority (78%) of chemist surveyed felt that prospective chemists are going into other sciences because of the opportunity to participate in more “newsworthy” breakthroughs, while 80% felt that innovation was suffering because of an overemphasis on applied research.

Tim Hoctor, a VP with Elsevier, commented on his company’s survey, “These findings highlight that one of the most conflicting challenges chemists face is the demand to deliver practical applications while at the same time achieving breakthrough discoveries that raise the bar for society. Scientific innovation inherently needs the space to explore, collaborate and seek multidisciplinary partners – but the speed at which innovations become practically impactful is still often insufficient to the demands of stakeholders from a business and funding perspective.”

Additional findings include:

• 75%think that potential chemists choose other fields because medical research innovation is associated with biology
• 21%think there are insufficient opportunities to collaborate with researchers in other fields
• 84%think that being technologically savvy is crucial or very important for career advancement

Hoctor added, “The role of the chemist is adapting to the digital age. The chemists graduating today are digital natives that expect to be able to access information wherever and whenever they need it, in a format that works for their needs. A key part of transforming the reputation of the chemistry community and presenting it as more innovative is ensuring these expectations are met. Institutions and businesses need to make sure they are providing chemists entering the industry with the right tools for the job.”

While the majority of chemists agreed on the industry’s image and retention problem and the need to be more technologically savvy, there were broad opinions on the exact definition of technically savvy. The chemists were asked about specific skills required to succeed in the modern world.

• 26 percent said that access to deep dive data analysis tools counted as a key requirement,
• 12 percent mentioned familiarity with machine learning and
• 22 percent argued for access to computational chemistry resources.

“These answers may suggest that modern chemists need to become more specialized, and gain experience in emerging technologies as the field advances.”[i]

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[i] https://www.scientific-computing.com/news/elsevier-survey-finds-chemists-must-adapt-digital-age