Preface: Science, disarmament and diplomacy in chemical education: the example of the organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons – The Spring 2016 Confchem

An overview

From May 2^nd to June 17, 2016, an international online conference sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) was held to promote and bring awareness to educational activities and resources associated with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) [1, 2] and its mission. The seven papers featured in this issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry were presented and discussed during this conference, which was hosted with the online ConfChem conference system of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education’s Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) [3]. During these 7 weeks the authors interacted with 881 members of the ConfChem list and as of November 1, 2016, the site has had over 21 000 views.

ConfChem may be the oldest ongoing online conference in the chemical sciences, with the first conference being run in 1993 [4, 5]. In the early days, papers were often posted by the authors on their own servers and then discussed over the ConfChem list, which originally was hosted by the University of Maryland. The list moved to Clarkson University in 1998, and then to its current host at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) in 2007 [6]. Over the past 23 years the ConfChem system has evolved and is currently run off of a centralized Drupal web 2.0 PHP/MySQL site maintained by Jon Holmes of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and designed in collaboration with Bob Belford (UALR). When a participant comments on a paper, an email is triggered to the ConfChem list containing the comment with an embedded reply link to the discussion, which is threaded below each paper; allowing authors to discuss their papers with the ConfChem community.

The papers

Education, outreach and the opcw: growing partnerships for a Global Ban by Joseph Ballard and Jonathan Forman, introduces the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the OPCW. The paper provides information on OPCW’s downloadable informational and educational materials, e-learning resources and modules.

Education and engagement: key elements to achieve a world free of chemical weapons by Alejandra Suárez, provides further details on education and outreach programs at the OPCW, and then describes programs, curricular activities and events which have been run in Argentina. This paper ends with a discussion of the Hague Ethical Guidelines.

Mainstreaming multiple uses of chemicals in chemistry teacher education programs of africa by Temechegn Engida, describes efforts and strategies to mainstream concepts of multi-use chemicals into teacher education programs. The paper focuses on teacher education because of the potential multiplier effect this can have. A Technology Pedagogy Content Knowledge (TPCK) framework is also presented in the context of an ICT-enhanced Teacher Development (ICTeTD) model.

The project irresistible: introducing responsible research and innovation into the secondary school classroom by Jan Apotheker, Ron Blonder, Sevil Akaygün, Pedro Reis, Lorenz Kampschulte and Antti Laherto; describes a European initiative to teach Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in secondary schools. This work fits within the Horizon 2020 EU Framework program for Research and Innovation. The paper describes activities involving science researchers, educators and science centers, including exhibits that are produced by students.

Citizen science and international collaboration through environmental monitoring with simple chemical sensors by Peter Mahaffy, Kristopher Ooms, Andrew Tappenden, Jonathan Forman, Ulrich Mans and John Sabou; describes a global experiment involving citizen science and inexpensive sensors. This paper describes a series of air monitoring experiments using inexpensive equipment to determine oxides of nitrogen and airborne particulate matter concentrations. The time stamped and geolocation tagged data can be obtained by citizens across the planet and uploaded to data centers and analyzed on a global scale.

Painful chemistry! From barbeque smoke to riot control by Christopher Green, Farrha Hopkins, Christopher Lindsay, James Riches and Christopher Timperley; delves into the biochemistry of lachrymators, chemicals that irritate the eyes and are often used as riot control agents. Of notable interest is that under the Chemical Weapons Convention the use of riot control agents is prohibited in warfare, but is allowed for use in law enforcement. This papers ends with biographical descriptions of the scientists involved with the evolution of the field.

Sampling and analysis of organophosphorus nerve agents: analytical chemistry in international disarmament by Elena Fischer, Marc-Michael Blum, Wesam S. Alwan and Jonathan E. Forman; describes the analytical methods and chemistry used in the 2013 UN led mission in Syria, where OPCW inspectors confirmed that the chemical warfare agent sarin had been used. The paper further describes the many challenges involved in identifying the use of chemical weapons, the importance of collecting and maintaining the data in a manner that preserves their validity, and how chemistry fits into a high profile international event.

Corresponding authors

Joseph Ballard
	Senior Policy Adviser, Office of Strategy and Policy, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Before joining the OPCW Mr. Ballard was a diplomat in New Zealand’s Foreign Service. He has served as New Zealand’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, representing New Zealand in the Geneva-based disarmament processes. He continued to focus on nuclear disarmament issues through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process and the series of conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. Mr. Ballard currently works in the Office of Strategy and Policy at the OPCW, covering a range of policy issues from education and outreach to chemical security.
Alejandra G. Suárez
	Dr. Alejandra G. Suárez is Professor of Organic Chemistry and Director of the School of Chemistry at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, and she is also researcher of the National Research Council CONICET, Argentina. From 2009 to 2015 she was member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the OPCW and became the Chair of this Board in 2013. During the period 2012–2104 she was member of the Temporary Working Group on Education and Outreach of the OPCW. Her main research areas involve green chemistry and chemical education focused on the promotion of the responsible practice of chemistry.
Temechegn Engida
	Dr. Temechegn Engida has served as the founding President of the Federation of African Societies of Chemistry (FASC) from 2006–2013, and is Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Chemical Education. He is also the Chairperson of the Committee on Chemistry Education in Africa (CCEA), the body of FASC responsible for the African Conference on Research in Chemical Education (ACRICE). Dr. Temechegn currently works for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA). Dr. Temechegn served as a member of the Temporary Working Group on Education and Outreach of the Scientific Advisory Board of OPCW.
Jan Apotheker
	Dr. Jan Apotheker lectures in chemistry education at the University of Groningen, is one of the KNCV (Royal Netherlands Chemical Society) representatives at IUPAC and secretary of the Committee on Chemistry Education of IUPAC. He coordinates the European FP7-project ‘Irressistible’ in which 10 University partners work together with Science centers in order to introduce the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation into Secondary Education. Coauthors include: Ron Blonder (professor in chemistry education at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot Israel), Sevil Akaygün, (assistant professor in chemistry education at the Bogazici University in Istanbul), Pedro Reis (professor in the Institute of Education at the University of Lisbon), Lorenz Kampschulte (post doc at the IPN in Kiel) and Antti Laherto, (assistant professor at the University of Helsinki).
Peter Mahaffy & Kris Ooms
	Dr. Peter Mahaffy, Professor of Chemistry at the King’s University in Edmonton, and co-director of the King’s Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS). He is a past chair of IUPAC’s Committee on Chemistry Education and has worked with OPCW for over a decade on education and outreach initiatives. Mahaffy’s current research and professional work is at the interfaces of chemistry education, visualization in science, sustainability/green chemistry, and the responsible uses of chemistry. Dr. Kris Ooms, Associate Professor of Chemistry at King’s, with research interests in both physical chemistry and chemistry education. Collaborators and coauthors include: Dr. Ulrich Mans and John Sabou from the Centre for Innovation and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, respectively, at Leiden University’s campus in the Hague Netherlands, and Andrew Tappenden (Associate Professor of Computing Science), Dr. Brian Martin (Professor of Physics and KCVS co-director) from Kings University, and undergraduate chemistry student researchers Mckenzie Oliver and Rachel Hislop-Hook from KCVS.
Christopher Timperely
	Dr Christopher Timperley is the current Chair of the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and a contributor to the SAB’s Temporary Working Groups on the Convergence of Chemistry and Biology, Education and Outreach, and Verification. Dr Timperley is the Capability Advisor for Chemistry Hazard Assessment, and a Technical Fellow, at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Porton Down, UK, where he has worked for 21 years. He conducts research into improved means of chemical defence in support of the strategic goals of the OPCW. Coauthors include: Dr. Christopher Green (Capability Advisor for Toxicology and Medical Countermeasures at Dstl), Dr Christopher Lindsay (senior toxicologist at Dstl), Dr. James Riches (senior analytical chemist at Dstl) and Mrs. Farrha Hopkins (analytical chemist at Dstl Porton Down).
Jonathan Forman
	Dr. Jonathan Forman, Science Policy Adviser at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Secretary to the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board comes to the world of science and policy after a career working in California based biotechnology start-up companies, his professional interests include assessment of emerging technologies, bringing effective science advice into policy making, and science diplomacy. Co-authors include: Dr. Marc-Michael Blum, a senior analytical chemist at the OPCW with research interests focused on issues at the intersection of science and policy, with a major focus on weapons of mass destruction, (non-)proliferation and arms control; and, Wesam Alwan and Elena Fischer who held internships in the Office of Strategy and Policy at OPCW in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

The papers in this collection bring to life the complexities of issues related to chemical disarmament on an international stage, and how the objectives and norms of a disarmament treaty intersect with chemistry students and educators. The Chemical Weapons Convention and its goal to eliminate the use of chemicals as weapons of war has seen many successes: all but four of the world’s nations are Member States of the OPCW; more than 93% (greater than 67 000 metric tonnes) of declared stockpiles of chemical warfare agents have been destroyed and there is an end in sight for the remainder of those stockpiles (Figure 1); and the OPCW received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.

Fig. 1:

Progress of destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles declared by States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention from 2000–2015. The increases observed in the total declared amounts of chemical weapons in 2004 and 2013 correspond to declarations from Libya (2004) and Syria (2013) after becoming States Parties to the Convention. The destruction of the remaining declared stockpiles (located in the USA and the Russian Federation) is expected to reach completion by 2023^[1]. The data used to produce this plot was obtained from OPCW Annual Reports [7].

As the OPCW prepares to celebrate its 20^th anniversary in 2017, the goal of a world free of chemical weapons faces new challenges, as illustrated by recent events in Syria and Iraq that continue to bring forward new allegations of the use of chemicals as weapons. These events are prompting chemists to speak out, through the Seville Declaration drafted during the 6^th European Society of Chemical and Molecular Sciences Chemical Congress in September 2016 [8], letters, and commentary in chemical society publications [9], there are now more than 40 national chemical societies from across the world condemning the use of toxic chemicals as weapons. These powerful statements of support for a global norm against chemical weapons amply demonstrate the strength of this norm and the conviction of chemistry practitioners around the world to protect it.

We hope you enjoy this collection of papers at the intersection of science and international disarmament policy. A collection that looks to stimulate interest in the role of scientists and educators, especially chemists in making the world a safer place.