Keynote lecture: Chemistry and resilience-building for sustainability
Stephen Matlin is a Visiting Professor in the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London and Vice-President and Secretary of the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development (IOCD). Educated as an organic chemist (imperial College London) and having worked for over 20 years in academia (Professor of Biological Chemistry, City University London and Warwick University), he moved into international development. He held senior positions in the Commonwealth Secretariat and UK Department for International Development, before joining the Global Forum for Health Research in Geneva as Executive Director. He has subsequently worked as a consultant in education, health, international development and chemistry. At IOCD, he leads an international group, Chemists for Sustainability (C4S), concerned with the role of chemistry in sustainable development. C4S has published extensively on this topic and has promoted a movement for one-world chemistry and the adoption of systems thinking and cross-disciplinary working in chemistry education, research and practice. He co-chairs an IUPAC project on systems thinking in chemistry education.