Formation and History at a Glance
Over a Decade of Partnership
In 2012 the SCG-Oxford Centre of Excellence for Chemistry was created - a unique collaboration between SCG and the Department of Chemistry.
Professor Dermot O'Hare, FRSC and Dr Suracha Udomsak, Chief Innovation Officer of SCGC & Executive Vice President - New Business of SCGC were the inaugural Director and Co-Director. The main objective of the CoE is to act as a hub for academic-industry collaboration as well as deliver both innovation to SCG and impact at the academic level.
Since 2012, the research carried out by the CoE has made an enormous impact:
- we have been associated with over twenty Chemistry Professors
- over thirty Post-Doctoral Research Assistants
- PhD students and two administrators
- at SCGC, from the President to the researcher level, around twenty people are directly involved in producing academic and industrial-relevant chemistry.
So far, 59 projects have been funded, amounting to over £20 million. Since 2011, CoE projects have resulted in over 40 patents and 130 publications in international peer-reviewed journals. In 2015, the CoE created the SCGC Innovation Fund (SIF) to pump-prime exciting, visionary projects within Oxford Chemistry. SCG committed £100k annually to funding eleven projects, of which half became of further commercial interest. In 2015-2016, 10% of all the new patent filings from the University of Oxford originated from the CoE. The establishment of the CoE itself has strengthened scientific and commercial ties between the UK and Thailand leading to Professor Dermot O'Hare and SCG's presentation to HRH Princess Sirindhorn at the British Embassy, Bangkok in 2016. This was a tremendous honour for all concerned, and the first time a Thai commercial organisation had been invited to showcase new chemical technologies to the Thai Royal Family.
The CoE was named the 2019 winner of the prestigious Industry-Academia Collaboration Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. It won the award for creating a unique and long-standing collaboration bringing benefits to chemical science. For ten years, it has been building on our respective cultures and strengths for our common benefit.
In 2019 SCGC created the wholly-owned UK entity SENFI UK. SENFI UK is based in purpose-built laboratories at the Centre of Enterprise and Innovation, University Science Park at Begbroke.
In October 2020, the Thai Ministry of Public Health, AstraZeneca, Siam Bioscience Siam was chosen as the production hub for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Southeast Asia, with an initial goal of producing 200 million doses. By the end of 2021, the company successfully completed the delivery of 61 million doses to Thailand. The facility has the capacity to produce 180 million to 200 million doses per year. SCG were a key connector for Oxford and AstraZeneca during the global rollout of our COVID-19 vaccine, convening our Thai partners and enabling its distribution throughout South East Asia.
Celebrating the Next Chapter of Collaboration (CoE2.0)
SCGC's environmental and societal responsibilities are driving the broadening of the relationship with Oxford. In 2022, SCGC and Oxford University defined a joint roadmap to take one step further and to broaden and deepen this fruitful, longstanding partnership beyond the Chemistry Department of Oxford University. So from 2023 we will now be known as the SCG-Oxford Centre of Excellence (CoE2.0).
CoE2.0 will focus on research and development in the area of Circular Economy, Carbon Dioxide Management, Green Hydrogen, Low Carbon Feedstocks, and Materials for Environmental Sustainability.
To achieve this shared goal, SCGC will support a new fund for early-stage innovation projects, the SCGC Fund for Innovation and Research in Sustainability and Technology (SCGC-FIRST). It will be administered by the MPLS Division.
The fund aims to support innovative ideas and nascent projects to innovate and discover solutions, address long-term carbon-neutral targets, help mitigate the effects of global warming, and benefit society and communities with a passion for a better world. The Fund wishes to support visionary and imaginative open innovation relevant to global challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, it is open to all Oxford University's academic staff from across disciplines.
In 2023 SCGC made an initial commitment of £1 million to launch SCGC-FIRST. An annual fund cycle will run over four years and will welcome applications from across the University, with successful projects invited to request substantial follow-on funding directly from SCGC. The MPLS Division will manage the fund on behalf of the University. Projects that demonstrate potential and impact may be eligible for further follow-on funding from SCGC. The launch of SCGC-FIRST cements a long and rich history of collaboration.
Today
Today, SCGC and Oxford continue to strengthen their partnership. Now in its second decade of shared success, the collaboration has grown from a single research tie in the Department of Chemistry into an Institute-wide alliance spanning multiple divisions. The research portfolio now spans the circular economy, low-carbon feedstocks, green hydrogen, carbon dioxide capture and utilisation, and advanced materials for environmental sustainability, with Oxford leading on invention and fundamental discovery, and SCGC taking that science downstream to make it scalable, commercial, and useful in global markets.
At the heart of this expansion is SCGC-FIRST, an early-stage innovation scheme that reflects the vision and leadership of the CoE's Director, Professor Dermot O'Hare, in broadening the partnership beyond its origins in Chemistry. Through a highly competitive, peer-reviewed process, the scheme has funded outstanding projects across successive rounds since 2023, broadening the network year on year and drawing in researchers from across the University. As a result, the collaboration now draws in over 15 research groups from across the University, from Engineering Science and Materials to Chemistry and beyond, bringing together established professors, early-career academics, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students, and stands as a model of what a long-term, trust-based industry and academia partnership can achieve.
