Symposium focuses on AI and sustainable manufacturing

SCHEMA and Alchemy co-hosted the AI-infused Sustainable Manufacturing Symposium at the Society of Chemical Industry in London on Tuesday, 11 November 2025. The day brought together researchers and industry for a programme focused on AI, automation and sustainable manufacturing.

Speakers at the AI-infused Sustainable Manufacturing Symposium

Morning schedule

The symposium opened with an introduction to the two EPSRC hubs from Prof Charlotte Williams of the University of Oxford, representing SCHEMA, and Prof Kim Jelfs from Imperial College London, representing AIchemy. The symposium keynote was delivered by Prof Matt Rosseinsky from the University of Liverpool, whose talk was titled Discovery of inorganic functional materials in the digital age in which he discussed the opportunities and limits of artificial intelligence in making new discovery in the field of chemistry. The first session was chaired by Prof Kim Jelfs, co-Director of AIchemy, and featured Dr Jean-Francois Ayme from the University of Liverpool who spoke on Putting a Brain in the Mobile Robotic Chemist, along with Dr Jess Andrews from CPI who spoke on No Factory Left Behind: opportunities for smart, sustainable manufacturing at every level. The second session was chair by Prof Charlotte Williams, SCHEMA Director, and featured Prof Camille Petit from Imperial, whose talk was titled Designing materials for carbon management using AI combined with automated and high throughput experimentation. Prof Petit was followed by Dr Aniket Chitre from Unilever, who spoke on Acceleration of Formulation Design via Automation & AI.

Afternoon schedule

Attendees divided into groups for breakout session, which consisted of facilitated discussions to explore overlapping research themes, existing project enhancement, project idea generation, and funding and industry & academic engagement. Groups grappled with questions such as:

• What are the current projects that delegates are working on/involved in that could be used as the basis for new collaborations? 
• Are there any clear/ obvious project directions that would benefit from both Hub input (three-way collaboration)? 
• How do we stimulate more involvement from industry in the Hubs/ research projects?
• What are approaches to accelerate the adoption of new 'Al' or computational methods into industry.

Symposium attendees

SCHEMA's Dr Sulley leading a discussion

Breakout session

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the symposium and for you contributions during the breakout group discussions. A special thank you to Sharon Todd, CEO of SCI, for welcoming attendees and sharing more about the SCI and its important work. 

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