Join us for our first Inaugural Lever Park Lecture in partnership with The Rivingtonians Association.
We invite all students, parents, staff and alumni to join us at our exciting new lecture series on Thursday, 7th November 2024, hosted by Tony Ryan OBE.
Location: Rivington & Blackrod High School
Date: Thursday, 7th November 2024
Time: 6.30pm
Click here to reserve your tickets
What to expect:
- Introduction by Tony Ryan OBE: Discover his inspiring background and career in Science.
- Innovative Solutions: Learn about Tony's impactful project in Syria, where science is applied to tackle real-world challenges.
About the Lecture Series: The Rivingtonians Association is proud to launch this series, aimed at fostering a love for learning and innovation in our community. Each lecture will explore fascinating topics that bridge science, technology, and practical applications.
About Professor Tony Ryan OBE
Tony leads the University of Sheffield’s programme in sustainability research, across pure and applied sciences, engineering and social sciences. His focus is on the global food, water and energy nexus challenge, harnessing the power of the sun for food production and renewable energy.
His research covers sustainable synthesis, structure, processing, and applications of polymers using advanced analytical and measurement techniques. For example, renewable sources for polymer synthesis, organic photovoltaics, maximising the properties of polymers and biopolymers through flow-induced crystallisation, formulation of home and personal care products and polymer foams for high intensity urban agriculture. The emphasis throughout is on understanding the fundamental science & technology in order to minimise resource use.
Tony holds BSc and a PhD from the University of Manchester and a DSc from UMIST. In 1997 he moved to Sheffield and served as Head of Chemistry before becoming the Pro Vice Chancellor for the Faculty of Science from 2008 to 2016. Tony delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and has an OBE for services to science.
Making science work for refugees & refugees work for science
Zaatari refugee camp, where 80,000 people are squeezed into six square kilometres, is an inspiring place to work. The refugees’ legal status usually prevents them from taking up employment, owning property or moving freely, stripping them of agency. At home they were farmers, engineers, teachers, doctors, so not only have they been forcibly displaced, but also forcibly unemployed. And they can’t do anything that even looks like it might lead to permanence, like getting a job or fixing their house. Despite this, the eagerness to put a plan into action was truly astounding, it is incredible to see the resilience of the Za’atari folk.
Our research on hydroponics is focussed on the production of high-value crops close to market (urban farming) with a low carbon and water footprint using polyurethane foam as a synthetic soil. I will show how we can predict the productivity of crops from the chemical recipe used to make the foam.
We connected our work on synthetic soils with a waste disposal problem posed by UNHCR - the UN's refugee agency. They saw dirty unused mattresses, we saw an alternative growth substrate and more than that ‘a problem’ that could actually help. In doing so we developed small-scale hydroponics at the household and community scale.
There are benefits that come from the act of co-creation, not ‘smart ideas’ parachuted in, and the equality found in some academic humility and what happens between people when safety is taken away. We responded to the frequent cry of the Syrian refugees - that they miss the colour green - not only did we find a technical fix, but also an impact on well being. This meant their innovations enhanced our research in Sheffield, we now have an urban farm built using the low-cost technology developed in Zaatari with farmers from Syria.
The people who live in these camps face daily struggles that many of us cannot imagine. But those we met embodied values that are often forgotten by those of us in more privileged parts of the world: an adaptable approach to solving problems, an aversion to waste, a sense of community. As hard as we must work to live in a world where no one is forced to flee their home, there is much we can learn from Syria’s refugees.