Medicinal and Biological Chemistry with Industrial Placement MSci

Course overview

This four-year course will give you the knowledge and practical lab experience to understand how innovations lead to solutions of societal, commercial and global problems. A standout feature of this course is the opportunity to undertake a paid, assessed placement within a chemical company, where you’ll contribute to a real research project and gain invaluable industry experience. This hands-on role allows you to apply your academic knowledge in a professional setting while developing key transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, and project management.

Alongside your placement, you’ll complete a distance learning theory module to continue your academic progress. You’ll also receive dedicated support from a placement tutor, who will stay in touch throughout to ensure you’re making the most of your experience. Watch Emily’s video of her placement experience as a Formulation Development Scientist at Upperton Pharma.

This MSci degree course is designed to provide a high-level, challenging and rewarding education and experience for the chemistry leaders of the future, whether in academic life, industry or other professions. You can choose from a range of medicinal and biological topics in chemistry for your fourth-year research project, depending on your interests or career aspirations. You will join one of our research groups to work on your project and benefit from the active research and latest insight of these groups.

You’ll take compulsory practical modules which introduce essential qualitative and quantitative laboratory skills which are required in inorganic, organic and physical chemistry. Optional modules allow you to tailor your degree to your own interests, learning to uncover the science behind how drugs are designed, how they interact with the body, and how chemistry helps treat disease.

Our medicinal and biological chemistry programmes also benefit from a stream of newly developed modules with new specialist content. You will study modules in green and sustainable chemistry and become an effective communicator of scientific ideas to a variety of audiences, using a range of media. These new modules will help you understand how chemistry is being reimagined to reduce environmental impact and create safer, cleaner solutions as part of a core stream of sustainability topics featured throughout this course.

By the end of this course you’ll be a skilled practical chemist, able to collect, process and analyse scientific and numerical data. You will be able to work safely in the laboratory and apply problem solving and critical thinking to a range of challenges. You’ll become an ethically aware chemist who maintains professional integrity and high standards in science.

Why choose this course?

• Industrial placement – Spend time in your third year working in industry. Previous placements include GSK, AstraZeneca, and Unilever.
• Dive deeper – Our MSci programmes let you explore subjects in greater depth and undertake an advanced research project
• Sustainability modules – Newly designed modules with sustainability focus
• Internationally-recognised – School of Chemistry, ranked 9th in the UK and top 100 in the World
• Award-winning teaching – Study in a school recognised for innovation in chemistry education and research excellence.
• Designed with you, for you – Our courses are co-created with students and industry to ensure they’re relevant, flexible, and future-focused.
• Career-ready skills – Gain hands-on lab experience, work on group projects, and develop transferable skills in communication, problem-solving, and data literacy.
• Be inspired – Learn from leading academics, including those featured on the popular YouTube channel Periodic Videos, such as Sir Martyn Poliakoff.

Careers and employability

The University of Nottingham is the third-most targeted university in the UK by leading employers (High Fliers' Graduate Market in 2025). A degree in chemistry will prepare you for a wide range of careers and you’ll develop the necessary academic and practical skills for working in industry, whether that be in pharmaceutical, petrochemical, cosmetics or others.

You will also develop your written and oral communication skills, and gain transferable skills such as problem-solving, numeracy, and data analysis. 88.4% of undergraduates from the School of Chemistry secured graduate level employment or further study within 15 months of graduation (*HESA Graduate Outcomes, 2020-21). The average annual starting salary for these graduates was £27,829.* Five years after graduation, median salaries rose to £36,100.** (LEO data from 2021/22 tax year, published in 2024 **)

Important information

This online prospectus has been drafted in advance of the academic year to which it applies. Every effort has been made to ensure that the information is accurate at the time of publishing, but changes (for example to course content) are likely to occur given the interval between publishing and commencement of the course. It is therefore very important to check this website for any updates before you apply for the course where there has been an interval between you reading this website and applying.