Pfizer to support maths in HE

As part of its outreach strategy, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is investing up to £1m over the next five years in a collaborative project, Discover chemistry,  with education professionals at Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) to enrich the teaching of chemistry in schools, colleges and universities.  

Dr David Fox, chemistry research director at Pfizer, is currently on secondment at the RSC for 15 months as part of Pfizer's commitment. High on the agenda for the RSC-Pfizer partnership is the provision of maths for the increasing number of first-year chemistry undergraduates who do not have maths A-level, or who lack confidence in maths. Fox told Education in Chemistry, 'I don't see how students can solve problems in today's chemical industry if they don't have fundamental maths skills to draw upon. It's not the repetitive skills we need, but the ability to analyse in a wide variety of contexts'.