Doctorate awarded to noted chemist

6 November 2009

Degree recognises the successful career of leading industrial chemist Bernard Dyer.

Industrial chemist Bernard Dyer has received the honorary degree Doctor of Science from BU.

The degree was presented during award ceremonies to recognise graduates from the University’s School of Design, Engineering & Computing.

Dr Dyer is a distinguished industrial chemist who spent much of his working life at senior levels in ICI, at one time the largest company in the UK. In retirement he has tirelessly served the British Association for Advancement of Science at its head office in London, and as founder-Chairman of the Wessex Branch.

He has greatly enriched the life of Dorset as President of the Poole Maritime Trust, Chairman of the Poole Harbour Heritage Project, co-founder of the Dorset Education-Industry Partnership.

He has always been concerned at the poverty of links between science and industry, and through the British Association he has worked hard to get science better understood and applied. In the early 1990s he founded the Wessex Branch of the Association, working with the then Dorset Institute which later evolved into Bournemouth University

Dr Dyer set up the Dorset Education-Industry Partnership, which later became part of the County Council as the Dorset Education-Business Partnership. He also launched Dorset Magazine Ltd, the company which publishes Dorset Life, the popular periodical which celebrates this County’s life and heritage.

His interests in chemistry, industry and history have combined in the work of the Poole Harbour Heritage Project which he set up, in association with Professor Tim Darvill of BU in 2000. This Project has carried out ground-breaking research into the history and archaeology of Poole Harbour.

“When I was first told that the University was preparing to give me this magnificent degree I was completely speechless and I remain speechless today,” Dr Dyer told his fellow graduates.

“As graduates, you have two distinct advantages. One is the fact that you were educated at a University that is doing so well and the second is your youth with the possibilities of putting all that you have learned into practice to improve the good fortune and future for yourself, your families, friends and colleagues and others in society.”