Tremendous opportunity awaits chemists over the next 10 years, predicts Bill Carroll, president of the American Chemistry Society (ACS).

Karen Harries-Rees/Cambridge, UK

Tremendous opportunity awaits chemists over the next 10 years, predicts Bill Carroll, president of the American Chemistry Society (ACS).

And it won’t be limited to bio, nano and materials science, he added. ’It’s even in basic chemistry. There are things that need to be done, be worked out and modernised - analytical, computational - things that you’ll never stop working on; you can always take the technology further,’ Carroll told Chemistry World today.

He has chosen ’opportunity’ as the theme for his presidency. ’Times of great change are also times of great opportunity,’ he said.

Carroll is running a project to understand what is driving chemistry, in terms of education, industry and government, and how it will change in the next 10 years. His goal is to understand how the ACS can help current and future members adapt to these changes and take advantage of the opportunities they offer.

A paper has been published detailing the current drivers found by surveying 30 chemistry leaders. Those drivers include economics, demographics, geography and cost and consolidation.

’The one I’m most fascinated by is demographics,’ he said. ’Where will companies get their technical people from as the generations change and the baby boomers retire?’

He also highlighted China’s rapid development as an issue for US and European chemistry. Instead of leaving China to work overseas, Chinese chemists are increasingly returning to China after a short spell studying or working overseas and this could have an impact, he warned.

The final Chemistry enterprise 2015 paper will be published at the end of the year.