Obituary for Professor Hugh Burrows, Scientific Editor of Pure and Applied Chemistry

Hugh Douglas Burrows (Hugh Burrows) was scientific editor of Pure and Applied Chemistry (PAC) from 2014 through 2022. He was our colleague and friend who unexpectedly left us on 12th March 2023 despite suffering from health problems over some years. His friendly disposition and the quality of conversations and scientific discussions, including those with colleagues from PAC, were always the same, even a few days before his passing.

Hugh was born seventy-eight years ago in 1945 in Worthing, UK. He gained a BSc in chemistry at the University of London in 1966 and a PhD from the University of Sussex in 1969 with a thesis on physical organic chemistry concerning the nucleophilic character of the carbonyl group supervised by RM Topping. Following this he undertook post-doctoral appointments in the University of Warwick, UK with TJ Kemp and in Tel Aviv, Israel with EM Kosower. A chance encounter in London with SJ Formosinho led to his coming to Coimbra in 1973. He remained here as an invited professor until 1976 when he accepted an invitation from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, at that time known as University of Ife, where he stayed until 1983.

He returned to Coimbra in 1983 where he remained for the rest of his life. He became known as an excellent professor to several generations of students and was an internationally-recognised scientific researcher retiring from teaching only in 2015, when he reached the age limit! His research interests were wide and diverse, the results being published in some four hundred articles, book chapters and book editing as well as some patents. These interests included photochemistry and photoluminescence, conducting and other polymers, surfactants and soaps. He had many collaborations in the University of Coimbra, particularly in the department of chemistry, as well as nationally and internationally. A large fraction of his colleagues in the department collaborated with him and have joint publications, as was my case. The fact that this happened reflects not only the interesting science, but also his personality that easily created bridges. Amongst other positions held, he was head of the department for four years and director of the chemistry research centre for three years. He was coordinator of the Doctoral Programme in Chemistry, which I inherited from him.

He participated in many international congresses with his collaborators. He was the Scientific Chair of the XXIV^th IUPAC Symposium on Photochemistry that took place in Coimbra in 2012, which was a huge success and attracted six hundred and forty participants. A special issue of PAC in July 2013 featured the important lectures and contributions to this conference. Possibly it was this symposium’s success that gave him the incentive to accept the nomination by the Portuguese Chemical Society as candidate for the position of scientific editor of PAC to follow James Bull. Hugh was chosen and took up his post in 2014, remaining until the end of 2022, when he decided to step down. A. Ganesan took over the position from the beginning of 2023. Throughout this time period, he was an ex officio member of the IUPAC Committee on Publications and Cheminformatics Data Standards and was also on the Editorial Board of Chemistry International (CI). This ensured that the two publications support each other editorially, CI making its readers aware of PAC special issues and other articles of interest. Hugh will be much missed by the CI board for his valuable contributions and friendship.

I remember, as IUPAC President, our writing a joint editorial on the collaboration between IUPAC and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in order to incentivize further the search for peaceful uses of chemicals, environmentally friendly and sustainable. Another important editorial was celebrating the 60th anniversary of PAC and that introduced a special issue highlighting the collaboration with Solvay in the IUPAC Solvay Award for Young Chemists containing articles based on the innovative work of awardees during their PhDs. His vision for the journal was of excellence and highlighting the breadth of coverage of chemistry as an interdisciplinary science, often reflected in PAC articles based on lectures in IUPAC-endorsed symposia and conferences. This vision was only a little affected by the appearance of Covid-19, bringing new challenges resulting from a smaller number of endorsed symposia providing articles for special issues of PAC, but which have been replaced by special issues on themes of current importance for the chemical and scientific communities.

Hugh will be sorely missed as scientific editor of PAC, to which he made substantial contributions, listening to and acting on the ideas from those around him, all striving towards the common goal of scientific excellence and relevance. The most important legacy of any of us is to contribute to making the world a better place than it would otherwise be and this, without any doubt, was achieved by Hugh Burrows.