The big interview Professor George Marston

Professor George Marston was appointed as Northumbria’s Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research & Innovation in August 2014.

Born and raised in Newcastle, he studied at Oxford where he graduated in Chemistry in 1984, before completing a doctorate in 1987. He then spent two years as a Resident Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC before returning to Oxford as a post-doctoral researcher. After a brief spell at the University of Leicester, he moved to the University of Reading in 1995, where he worked in a number of roles before progressing to Dean of the Faculty of Science in 2011.

Today, Professor Marston is an active member of the Royal Society of Chemistry with current research interests focused on particle formation in the lower atmosphere, and the climate impact of fluorine-containing compounds. Northumbria University News catches up with him to discuss the importance of research to students, businesses and the world in which we live.

Northumbria describes itself as a researchrich university. Can you elaborate?

In my mind, the phrase ‘research-rich’ signifies that research permeates all our activities as a university. Research doesn’t sit in a special little box on its own; it is integral to what we do. To be effective, we have to think about research, learning and teaching, business engagement and internationalisation as a package.

All of Northumbria’s core activities are underpinned by research. From the teaching in our classrooms, studios and workshops to our partnerships with businesses and community organisations; sharing academic expertise allows students, the community and the commercial sector to respond effectively to the world’s current issues and concerns.

There is a simple question we have to ask ourselves: does Northumbria University have the critical mass of high quality research to justify our claim to be a research-rich organisation? We can’t answer this question internally; we need external verification. That verification came in December, when results from the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the UK-wide assessment of research quality in UK universities, were published. The results demonstrated that Northumbria had massively increased its research activity since 2008 in terms of both quality and quantity, and has high proportions of world-leading and internationally excellent research in all of it research areas.

Furthermore, the Times Higher Education magazine reported that the increase in our market share of the nation’s research power since 2008 is third behind UCL and King’s. It also reported that we are the biggest climber in research power ranking, across the whole of the UK, having leapt 30 places from 80th to 50th. This is a very significant step forward for the University.

What the REF results show is that we have the quality and volume of research activity necessary to underpin Northumbria as a research-rich university.

So how exactly does research-rich learning benefit our students?

University teaching is about more than getting students to know facts and learn basic skills. It is about instilling in them an ability to apply their knowledge and understanding to new problems, which, in the world of work, may be outside of their discipline.

Northumbria’s approach to research-rich learning embeds this way of thinking into students’ views of what education is about. So research-rich learning prepares students to tackle the difficult questions and challenges that they will encounter in their chosen career.

How has Northumbria’s research impacted on the world around us?

Research at Northumbria has a huge impact, whether that impact is societal, cultural or economic. The REF has highlighted some areas where we have particular strength. For example, in Psychology, 73% of our submissions were judged to be 4*. This means it is outstanding in terms of its impact, reach and significance.

An example of our impact includes the creation of more than 200 school breakfast clubs across the country, thanks to a training programme and extensive research conducted by Northumbria academics. This research investigated the effects of breakfast club attendance on children’s behaviour, cognition and social friendships.

Our research around alcohol reduction through GP screening also demonstrates the significant impact of our work. This research has been used by Public Health England to set up the Alcohol Learning Centre – a website that provides online resources and learning for commissioners, planners and practitioners working to reduce alcoholrelated harm. The research has also had a strong impact on medical practitioners and policy makers globally.

You have previously worked as a Resident Research Associate with NASA, and a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University. Could you share some of the highlights from your own research career?

The research I was involved with in Oxford and while at NASA was really interesting. It involved topics such as airglow chemistry and the chemistry of planetary atmospheres that did not have the direct application to real-world problems that my subsequent research has had. There were many technical and mathematical challenges to overcome and I am very proud of what I achieved under the inspiring supervision of Professor Richard Wayne at Oxford and Dr Lou Stief at NASA. However, the highlight for me — and I suspect many researchers might mirror what I say here — was the first paper I published where I could say I had led the research from start to finish. All aspects of doing good research are difficult — which puts our excellent REF results into context — but leading research is particularly challenging.

I had managed to secure funding for a PhD student and a post-doctoral research associate, and we were working on a problem related to the reactions of ozone with organic molecules in the lower atmosphere. We were able to provide evidence for the generation of a particularly important reactive species in these reactions and published the results in Geophysical Research Letters, a high profile journal. Very satisfying! But of course, while I led the project, it was very much a team effort.

Finally, can you name a piece of academic research that has had a significant impact on your life personally?

I remember when I was young being astonished by the research that Hubble did to show that the Universe was expanding. It was fascinating because it addressed one of the biggest questions there is, but also showed how careful measurements combined with a real understanding of fundamental physical principles could tell us something about the relationship between Earth and galaxies millions of light years away.

It showed that while theory can be really powerful, it has to be grounded in observations of the world around us; Hubble debunked Einstein’s ‘cosmological constant’, a fudge factor Einstein included in his theory of general relativity because he couldn’t believe that the Universe was expanding. This research had a huge impact on me personally in terms of my understanding of the world around us, but was also part of the reason I wanted to be a scientist.

For more information about Northumbria’s REF 2014 results, see the story on page 1 or visit www.northumbria.ac.uk/research