Introduction

The 2007 edition of the annual Analytical Research Forum (ARF), the premier Analytical Science meeting of the RSC held annually at a location in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland, attracted 200 delegates. 

ARF is aimed primarily toward early-stage analytical science students (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers). 

The programme

The meeting's programme is traditionally biased towards graduate student speakers supported by a number of invited eminent scientists and Analytical Division prizewinners. The 2007 event consisted of 17 talks by young researchers working in Ireland and Britain and 111 poster presentations, together with five invited lecturers and three awardees. 

Thanks are given to the invited lecturers who were selected to reflect the broad range of research interests giving attendees exposure to a number of analytical science applications:

Professor Roy Goodacre (University of Manchester, UK)
Professor David Russell (University of East Anglia, UK)
Dr David Saunders (The British Museum, London, UK)
Professor A P de Silva (Queens University Belfast, UK)
Dr Jeff Gunnell (ExxonMobil Chemical Ltd, UK)

The meeting was formally opened by Professor Andrew Hamnett, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde. 

The parallel Chromatography and Electrophoresis Interest Group meeting gave delegates the opportunity to network with industrialists.

For further details on the programme, please see the Programme In this section link.

Scientific Committee

We would like to thank the scientific committee for their work towards the conference:

Dr Lorraine Gibson (University of Strathclyde, UK) (Chair)
Dr Christine Davidson (University of Strathclyde, UK)
Dr Karen Faulds (University of Strathclyde, UK)
Dr Janet Warren (Scottish Region of the RSC Analytical Division, UK)
Clare Smith (RSC Schools and Colleges Committee, UK)

Awards

The Analytical Chemistry Trust Fund (ACTF) Essay prize was a new development for 2007, and was awarded at ARF to Ainsley Dominick for her essay entitled 'Science Fiction - or Fact?'. All students who attended ARF07 were invited to submit a essay for consideration for this prize of £250. 

As in previous years ARF07 hosted the following awards: 

The SAC Silver Medal was awarded to Dr Robert Dryfe (University of Manchester). This is traditionally given to a young scientist (under the age of 35), working in any field covering the practice and teaching of the analytical sciences. 

The aim of the Ronald Belcher Memorial Lectureship is to commemorate the memory of the late Professor Belcher by encouraging young chemists to make a positive contribution to, and to take an active part in, the profession of Analytical Chemistry. Rachel Evans (Swansea University, UK) and Claire Schofield (University of East Anglia, UK) were the 2007 recipients awarded at ARF07.

The ACTF oral presentation prize was awarded to Peter Faull (University of Edinburgh, UK) for his talk entitled 'Probing conformational changes in metalloproteins by ion mobility mass spectrometry'.

ARF08

We look forward to the next ARF in 2008 at the University of Hull on 21 - 23 July.