Science Minister Opens Refurbished MS Facility at Swansea

Edwina Hart, the Minister for Economy, Science and Transport, officially opened the Engineering and Physical sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) UK National Mass Spectrometry Facility (NMSF) at Swansea University following its recent £3m contract renewal and refurbishment.

Located within the University’s College of Medicine it offers mid-range MS facilities and services for leading university research groups throughout the UK, as well as having some commercial research opportunities.

“A recent Research Excellence Framework report identified that Welsh universities are producing world-class and internationally important scientific research,” Edwina Hart said. “Investing in highly technical facilities like this new mass spectrometer is key to improving this research even further. It is also very pleasing to see Swansea University working in partnership with business to maximise the economic and social benefits of scientific research.”  

Professor Julie Williams, Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales gave an opening address as part of the afternoon scientific session, which featured a series of lectures from internationally leading scientists including Professor Jim Scrivens, Warwick University; Dr Raymond March, Professor Emeritus at Trent University, Ontario, Canada; Professor Jonathan Williams, University of Bath; and Professor Helen Cooper, University of Birmingham.

 Professor Keith Lloyd, Dean and Head of the College of Medicine at Swansea University, said: “This facility is one of the four key research council centres in the medical school that helped drive our outstanding performance in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework to assess the quality of research in UK universities in which we came equal first in the UK for our research environment.”