Charlotte Williams Chairing CS3 Summit

Tutorial Fellow Charlotte Williams is chairing this year’s Chemical Sciences and Society Summit (CS3), a partnership between the funding agencies and chemical societies of China, Germany, Japan and the UK.

Hosted this year from 11 to 13 November at the Royal Society of Chemistry, the annual meetings each tackle a global societal challenge in the areas of health, food, energy, and the environment. Each country is represented by a delegation for 5-6 of their leading scientists who spend two days identifying the most pressing problems that need to be solved and discussing how the chemical sciences can help to tackle these challenges and propose future directions of research. This year’s theme is plastics, and discussions will focus on how chemical sciences can make plastics more sustainable.

Professor Williams is recognised internationally for her work on the development of sustainable polymers, including plastics which are biodegradable, recyclable and sourced from waste plants. She has discovered and investigated the properties of new plastics and materials which are sourced from plants or waste carbon dioxide and which can be used as materials for packaging, adhesives, elastics, coatings and foams. Professor Williams will be joined in the UK delegation by leading scientists from the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Exeter and Nottingham.

As part of the event, an online live discussion chaired by BBC environment reporter will feature expert panellists from the UK, Germany, Japan and China discussing the summit's key themes: New plastics (including designing and generating sustainable plastics), Recyclability of plastics, degradation of plastics, and measuring the impact of plastics.