2026 RSC Belgium Annual General Meeting and Annual Dinner

The RSC Belgium Section 2026 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Annual Dinner took place on Friday 23 January 2026 at Les Amis Dinent Restaurant, Chaussee de Malines/ Mechelsesteenweg 113, 1970 Wezembeek-Oppem.

The meeting commenced at 19h35 and was chaired by Section Secretary Prof Bob Crichton in the absence of Section Chair Tim Reynolds who had to attend a family funeral in the UK.

Seven section members were present: David Terrell, Robert Crichton, Julie Tuppeny, Susan Schamp, Fabio Lucaccioni, Ludovic Troian-Gautier, and Axhentila Mpali.Co-opted committee member Bo Dahlqvist was also present.

Eleven section members who were unable to attend the AGM sent their apologies and had asked the Chair of the meeting to act as their proxy for the meeting if a vote was required. These members were: Tim Reynolds, Wim De Borggraeve, Steven De Feyter, Richard Green, Ari Koskinen, Dirk Vanderzande, James Franklin, Mike Wijnhoven, Koen Clays, Robert Markowski, and Rashmi Singh.

 The draft minutes of the meeting are posted below for your nformation.

1. Apologies for absence

No further apologies had been received.

2. Approval of Minutes of 2025 AGM

No corrections were suggested, and the meeting moved and unanimously adopted the minutes.

4. Committee Report on the Section’s 2025 Activities (Bob Crichton – Secretary)

The Secretary presented the 2025 Committee report.

“During 2025 RSC Belgium organised five public evening lectures (most of which were recorded and posted on our @RoySocChemBelgium YouTube channel) and held a Café Chimique on aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and healthcare.

The year kicked off , as usual with our 2025 AGM and Annual Dinner on the evening of Friday 19 January at Les Amis Dinent restaurant in Wezembeek-Oppem. At the AGM Tim Reynolds was elected as Section Chair, Bob Crichton was elected as Section Secretary and Fabio Lucaccioni was elected as Treasurer. In addition, Julie Tuppeny, Rita Woodward, and Susan Schamp were elected as committee members. Other committee members in mid-term were David Terrell and Ari Koskinen.

During the year, your section committee met only twice: on 14 January and 29 November but stayed connected via email and social media.

The 2025 talks programme commenced on 4 February with Professor Bob Crichton giving an enlightening talk entitled 'How Gaming theory helped solve Protein Structure Prediction – an overview of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Chemistry'. This was followed on 27 March with the return to Belgium of Professor Andrea Sella of University College London to give us his renowned 'Strange Ice' talk.

On 29 April we welcomed Professor Frank Vanhaecke from Ghent University to talk about ‘ICP-mass spectrometry in the biomedical sciences: pushing the boundaries of the application range’. Frank had received the RSC’s prestigious ‘Theophilus Redwood award’ in 2023 for outstanding contributions to the chemical sciences in the area of analytical chemistry. Our first half of the year was completed with a Café Chimique on Artificial Intelligence (AI) on 13 May featuring two pioneering entrepreneurs of the use of AI in healthcare: Dr Dani Manjah from Professor Benoit Macq's research group at the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain, and Thibaut Helleputte, founder and CEO of DNAlytics.

Sadly, over the summer we lost one of the section’s founding members and the leading light of our work with schools in Belgium: Rita Woodward. Rita served on the RSC Belgium section committee continuously from its founding in the early 1990s until her passing. In 2010 Rita had received an RSC Award for Service to recognise her outstanding support for the work of the society. We will miss her very much. A social event for Rita was held to remember and celebrate Rita’s life in early October.

Our activities resumed on 30 September with a talk from Professor Gwenhaël de Wasseige from the Universite Catholique de Louvain about her exciting work on neutrinos and other astronomical phenomena. And our final event of the year was a pre-Halloween treat on 28 October with science writer Victoria Atkinson telling us about ‘Witchcraft’s chemical secrets: the science behind the spells’.

Unfortunately, during the year, we were not able to organise our annual Chemistry Challenge competition nor a Top of the Bench (ToTB) type event. But our 2024 ToTB winners, Team Solvay from St Georges School in Luxembourg, were able to represent Belgium at the last ever ToTB final in the UK that took place on 22 March at Cardiff University. We hope to revive our schools’ events during 2026.

Just before the AGM we received news of the last two students who will receive awards from our Dr Norman Lloyd Scholarship Fund at Cardiff University. They are Caitlin Nghiem and Jesyka Dunn who are both in the final year of their MChem degrees and are exceptional students. The scholarship scheme ran from 2014 to 2025 and was closed in 2025 with the agreement of Norman’s family and the university.

Our YouTube channel continued to grow during the year with some 506 subscribers and our ‘content’ continues to prove extremely popular. Our all time ‘Top Three’ videos (as of the end of 2025) remain, as last year, at #3 Philip Ball with 1,830 views, in second spot Plasma-based CO2 conversion with 9,520 views, while Nick Lane remains top of the pops with a remarkable 25,546 views. Our post popular video posted in 2025 was the ‘Gaming theory to Protein structure’ talk from February with some 247views.

We aim to run a full programme of events during 2026, but we need to inspire more of our local members to help organise our events and activities. Details of forthcoming events can always be found on the RSC Belgium blog.”

There were no questions on the report, and the meeting moved and unanimously approved its adoption.

5. Financial Report for 2025 (Fabio Lucaccioni – Treasurer)

The treasurer presented the 2025 financial report and accounts.

“The 2025 financial statements have been prepared with revenues and expenditures classified according to categories predefined by the RSC Headquarters.

• Current Account Balance (Year-End 2025): € 4,529.85

• Net Expenses (Receipts minus Payments): € 1,417.25

• Savings Account Balance (Year-End 2025): € 4,549.98

Extraordinary Event – Bank Error:

During the summer 2024, our banking partner (ING) erroneously issued a debit card linked to the RSC account to our Chairman, Professor Crichton. This administrative error resulted in unintentional use of the card by Professor Crichton for personal transactions. Upon identifying the issue, the bank issued a formal apology. Professor Crichton, unaware of the card’s linkage to the RSC account, immediately reimbursed all expenses following a request from the Treasurer. Reimbursement was completed in two instalments due to an oversight in the initial bank statement reconciliation. The residual amount was cleared in early 2025 (€264.82).

Income Overview:

Total Income (2025): €4,654.83

Key income sources:

• Grant from RSC Headquarters: €4,000.00

• Revenue from Annual Dinner

• Reimbursement from Professor R. Crichton – Bank Error

• Interest from the Deposit Account

Expenditure Overview:

Total Expenses (2025): €3,237.58

Breakdown of key expenses:

1. Annual Dinner after AGM: €757.50

2. Six Lectures – 200 attendees:

o BSB Auditorium venue hire : €496.00

o Speakers travel, accommodation, gift and bank charges: €1,984.08

Audit Compliance: As the total annual income is below £10,000.00, the accounts are not subject to external audit.”

 The meeting moved and unanimously approved adoption of the Treasurer’s report.

 6. Chair’s Remarks (Bob Crichton in Tim Reynold’s absence)

On behalf of the Chair Bob Crichton thanked all members of the committee for their continuing hard work and support and looked forward to this continuing during 2026.

The loss of Rita during the year had been very sad and a great loss to the section in particular her ideas and enthusiasm for the section’s activities with schools would be greatly missed. It would be important to recruit some new members to support the activities of the committee.

Bob said that the programme for 2026 was in formulation and the first talks of the year would the announced in the near future.

7. Election of committee members and section officers

The following nominations had been received for election to the committee. There were three vacancies for committee members.

Nominations for Committee Members: David Terrell, Ludovic Troian-Gautier

All positions are for a two-year term. As the number of nominations was less than the number of vacant positions, both candidates were duly elected.

Other committee members in mid-term are Tim Reynolds (Section Chair), Bob Crichton (Section Secretary), Fabio Lucaccioni (Section Treasurer), Julie Tuppeny and Susan Schamp

At the first committee meeting of 2026 Bo Dahlqvist will be co-opted onto the committee.

8. Auditing arrangements

As noted above as the section turnover did not exceed £10 000 then RSC rules indicate that no formal audit is required before the accounts are submitted to HQ.

9. Any Other Business

There was no AOB and the meeting adjourned at 19h50.

The meeting was followed by the Section Annual Dinner. Images below.

Final awards from the Norman Lloyd fund confirmed

Just before our 2026 AGM the section received news of the last two students to receive support from our Dr Norman Lloyd Scholarship Fund at Cardiff University. The two are Caitlin Nghiem and Jesyka Dunn who were both in the final year of their MChem degrees and are described as exceptional students by the university.

The two students have now sent messages of thanks to the section and Norman’s family.

Jesyka Dunn said: “I would like to sincerely thank you for awarding me the Dr Norman Lloyd Scholarship. I am very grateful for your generous support and for the recognition of my Placement Project.

My placement was in process and green chemistry, which is the area I plan to continue in as I begin my PhD studies this September. Through this experience, I saw how bench chemistry can be translated into real-world solutions and how chemistry can play a vital role in improving sustainability. This has reinforced my motivation to pursue a career in this field.

Thank you once again to the Royal Society of Chemistry for your support and encouragement.”

Caitlin Nghiem said: “I would like to express my gratitude to the Royal Society of Chemistry Belgium for awarding me the Dr Norman Lloyd Scholarship in recognition of my placement project. My industrial year at Dycotec Materials Ltd was both challenging and transformative, giving me the opportunity to fully immerse myself in an industry environment. I am grateful for the opportunity to explore a range of engaging project areas within materials for the printed electronics sector, allowing me to complete my placement project with enthusiasm and scientific curiosity. I am honoured to have had received this award in recognition of my work during the year, and I am deeply grateful for the support it provides for me as I approach the completion of my MChem degree.

Chemistry has always inspired me because of its value in day-to-day life to innovative technological solutions. This scholarship will help me continue developing these interests by supporting opportunities that strengthen my scientific training and broaden my experience. Being recognised for my placement project has also been incredibly encouraging, giving me greater confidence in my academic and practical abilities. I am grateful for this support as it enables me to pursue research with meaningful societal and environmental impact while I begin exploring the different pathways at the beginnings of my career journey.”

The two students shared the final award from the fund of £132.

“I cannot understate how impactful support like yours is – as you can see in both of these testimonials, the award gives financial aid but more than that a huge boost in confidence and motivation," commented Dr Esther Liu, Legacies and in Memoriam Officer at Cardiff University.

The scholarship

The Norman Lloyd scholarship was set up by RSC Belgium in collaboration with Norman’s family and Cardiff University in memory of our old friend and supporter Norman Lloyd. Norman was himself a student at an institution that is now part of the university. The funds raised provided an annual scholarship of £1,000 for an undergraduate student, usually in their first year of study, at the Cardiff School of Chemistry.

The scholarship scheme ran from 2014 to 2025 and was closed in 2025 with the agreement of Norman’s family and the university.

Witchcraft’s chemical secrets: the science behind the spells

There be witches here! As a pre-Halloween treat on the evening of Tuesday 28 October 2025, RSC Belgium welcomed science writer Victoria Atkinson to Belgium to give a talk entitled ‘Witchcraft’s chemical secrets: the science behind the spells’.

The infamous witch hunts of the 16th and 17th century claimed thousands of lives (the vast majority of these victims being women), but behind the accusations lay a complex relationship between chemistry, traditional medicine and magic. In her talk Victoria explored how plant alkaloids and folk knowledge created potent and effective remedies that were both feared and sought after.

Dr Victoria Atkinson is a third-generation chemist who studied at the University of Oxford including a fourth-year master’s project working on catalytic methodology with Darren Dixon which led to her first publication. She continued on to do a PhD, with Jeremy Robertson on a total synthesis project, employing enzymatic methodology to produce agrochemical products.

However, towards the end of her PhD, Victoria found that she was enjoying talking about science much more than actually doing it and became heavily involved in science outreach – sharing her enthusiasm for science with younger students through practical workshops and school visits. Later, she focused on developing new outreach material and then made the transition to freelance science journalism via a Marriott Internship with the RSC’s Chemistry World magazine. 

Today Victoria works with a range of publications specialising in chemistry, sustainability and research culture.

You can access Victoria's article on Chemistry and Witchcraft published in Chemistry World here.

Victoria's talk was videoed and you can enjoy it again either via the embedded video below or on our dedicated RSC Belgium YouTube Channel.

Witchcraft’s chemical secrets: the science behind the spells

New windows on our Universe

On the evening of Tuesday 30 September 2025, RSC Belgium welcomed Professor Gwenhaël de Wasseige from the Universite Catholique de Louvain to talk to us about her exciting work on neutrinos and other astronomical phenomena. Her talk was a real eye-opener to the world of new ways of observing our universe through 'multi-messenger' astronomy - in particular extremely sensitive, cutting-edge research to detect neutrinos.

Most of what we know about our Universe today comes from the observation of visible light. To improve our understanding of the numerous exotic phenomena that populate the sky, we need to enlarge the spectrum of our observations. Furthermore, adding new cosmic messengers provides extra pieces to help solve the puzzles of the universe. In the talk, Professor Gwenhaël de Wasseige reviewed the status of multi-messenger astronomy and discussed the pros and cons of each messenger to study some of the most violent events in the universe.

Professor de Wasseige is an astroparticle physicist and a member of both the IceCube and KM3NeT collaborations and her main work is focused on low-energy (MeV-GeV) neutrinos coming from transient events, such as solar flares, core-collapse supernovae, and compact binary star mergers.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory was the first detector of its kind, designed to observe the cosmos from deep within the Antarctic ice. Encompassing a cubic kilometre of ice, IceCube searches for nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos. These high-energy astronomical messengers provide information to probe the most violent astrophysical sources: events like exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars.

The KM3NeT collaboration is developing the next generation neutrino telescopes with telescope detector volumes between a megaton and several cubic kilometres of clear sea water. Located in the deepest parts of the Mediterranean, KM3NeT is opening a new window on our Universe including research on the properties of the elusive neutrino particles.

You can find a pdf version of Prof de Wasseige's presentation here and the work of the KN3Net project was recently featured (October 2025) in the EU's Research Magazine Horizon.

The talk took place in the Social Area above the Brel Theatre at the British School of Brussels (BSB), Tervuren and was followed by our usual social networking. 

RIP Rita

Rita Woodward (née Blakeborough)

19 June 1942 – 3 August 2025

Over the summer the section lost one of its founding members and the leading light of our work with schools in Belgium. Rita Woodward served on the RSC Belgium section committee continuously from its founding in the early 1990s until her passing. During that time, she held the office of Treasurer twice (1998-2000 and 2011– 2016) and was Chair of the section from 2001-2002. Rita had been a member of the RSC since 1964.

Rita led our work with schools for more than three decades. She devised the experiments and developed the questions for our annual Top of the Bench competitions for school teams – Belgium being the only section not based in the British Isles to send a school team to the UK finals – and also, in more recent times, developed our Chemistry Challenge initiative for individual students.

In 2010 Rita received an RSC Award for Service to recognise her outstanding support for the work of the society. Rita was presented with this prestigious award by RSC President Professor David Phillips (see above) at a glittering dinner event during the 2010 RSC's General Assembly. Previously she had been awarded an RSC Long Service award at our 2007 section AGM.

Rita was born on 19 June 1942 in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, but her early life was in Africa as her engineer father worked on developing the railways. The family spent time in West Africa before moving east, living in Uganda and eventually settling in Kenya.

She returned to the UK for secondary school, living with her grandmother in Newport, South Wales, and developed a strong interest in Chemistry. Her first job was as a research assistant at British Petroleum in Barry, South Wales where she met her life-long partner and husband Peter, whom she married in 1965.

Initially Rita did not consider university, but she followed her passion for chemistry, studying at night school for an ‘Associate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry’ (ARIC) qualification that she completed at Aston University. Rita then obtained a teaching diploma at Keele University.

In 1977, Rita, Peter and the family moved to Belgium enrolling their two sons at the British School ofBrussels (BSB). Rita also joined BSB, initially as a supply teacher, before joining the Chemistry department. She went on to become Head of Chemistry, and later Head of Science, dedicating more than 25 years to the school. Rita designed the very splendid laboratories at BSB.

Rita remained involved with the Royal Society of Chemistry, and in particular the Belgium section, throughout her adult life, and this continued into her retirement. The RSC played a central role in her and Peter’s social life, and many lasting friendships came from it.

Rita will be missed dearly and remembered always with love. For colleagues, students, and friends, she was someone who you could rely on and respect. She embraced every stage of her life with thoughtfulness, energy, and purpose. Whether through her work, her friendships, her family, or her hobbies, she gave her time and attention generously. She had a quiet determination, a steady presence, and a deep sense of responsibility to those around her.

Rita leaves husband Peter and their two sons: Jonathan and Michael.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare and beyond

An RSC Café Chimique on Artificial Intelligence (AI) took place on Tuesday 13 May 2025 in the Social Area above the Brel Theatre at the British School of Brussels. Our two speakers were pioneering entrepreneurs of the use of AI in healthcare: Dr Dani Manjah from Professor Benoit Macq's research group at the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain, and Thibaut Helleputte, founder and CEO of DNAlytics, a start-up specialising in data sciences applied to healthcare located in Louvain-la-Neuve.

The debate was chaired by Professor Bob Crichton, our recent past Chair of the section and the discussion was kicked off, as usual for our Cafe Chimique events, by short presentations from the two speakers.

Our first presentation was from Dani who gave a quick overview of what AI was - and was not - and then described some applications in healthcare. Dani's presentation is embedded below.

Thibaut then gave some further insights to his work on AI and healthcare. His presentation is embedded below as a pdf.

Following the two presentations an extensive and wide-ranging discussion was initiated led by questions from the audience. Issues covered included societal and socio-economic issues as well as sector-specific concepts.

As with our previous debates the audience was seated in a café-style format and gratis drinks and light refreshments were available before and during the event.

Strange Ice

On the evening of Thursday 27 March 2025, the section welcomed Professor Andrea Sella of University College London back to Belgium to give us his 'Strange Ice' talk. The talk was a highly personal journey into the world of the strange solid that all of us know and love and yet which conceals deep mysteries and dark prophecies about our shared future. 

Andrea's presentation took us from a glass of water to the skies above our heads, from the Alps to the winters of Poland and up to the Arctic, stopping to look at a variety of other ices, both crystalline and amorphous, and asking questions about chemistry, physics, psychology, climate change, disinformation and politics. Ice speaks. Can we learn to listen?

The talk was highly informative, entertaining and thought provoking and initiated a wide-ranging discussion that continued into the post-talk networking. 

A video of the proceedings was recorded and is now available on the RSC Belgium YouTube channel and is also embedded below.

About Andrea

Andrea Sella is a chemist and broadcaster based at University College London where he is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. His main research is on rare-earth metals and he collaborates with several research groups on hydrogen storage, carbonitrides, and nanotube insertion chemistry. He has been involved in numerous television documentaries, including the 2010 BBC documentary “Chemistry: A Volatile History”, which was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Television Awards. In 2014 he presented "My Family and other Ibex" and "Urine Trouble: What's in our Water" on BBC Radio 4. He has been a guest on Melvyn Bragg's “In Our Time” and appeared regularly on radio programmes like Start the Week, Weekend, Newshour, the Today Programme and the Infinite Monkey Cage. He has been consultant and contributor for the BBC World Service's series "Elemental Economics" presented by Justin Rowlatt.

Andrea had previously presented our 2010 demonstration lectures, as part of the annual ‘Printemps des Sciences’ festival in March at Louvain-la-Neuve. On that occasion (pre blog) he gave us a fascinating exposition on oscillating reactions somewhat confusingly called ‘How the Zebra got its Stripes’ - and had delivered one of the lectures in French.