Rate My Professor Richard Bourne

Professor Richard Bourne is Professor of Digital Chemical Manufacturing at the University of Leeds, affiliated with the Institute of Process Research and Development in the School of Chemistry. He holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Digital Discovery and Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals, funded by AstraZeneca, appointed in 2019. Bourne completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Martyn Poliakoff at the University of Nottingham and previously served as a Research Fellow there from 2008 to 2012. His career at Leeds has progressed from Associate Professor to his current professorial role, where he leads the Digital Manufacturing and Emerging Technologies group.

Bourne's research focuses on continuous processing, automation and optimisation, industrial process development, and sustainability. He develops sustainable processes emphasizing continuous flow routes to pharmaceutical and fine chemical products, employing automated flow systems that integrate online analysis, feedback control, and evolutionary algorithms for enhanced process understanding and optimization. This interdisciplinary work at the chemistry-chemical engineering interface scales processes from laboratory to manufacturing. He leads EPSRC projects including Cognitive Chemical Manufacturing, FLEXICHEM: Flexible Digital Chemical Manufacturing Through Structure/Reactivity Relationships, and NanoMan: Self-Optimising Nanoscale Manufacturing Platforms, as well as EU-funded IbD and ProPAT, and Innovate UK grants CelluPAT and OPTOMS. Bourne received the Society of Chemical Industry Chemistry for Industry Award in 2023 and serves on the School of Chemical and Process Engineering Research and Innovation Committee and the Dial-a-Molecule Steering Group. His scholarly impact includes over 6,700 citations, advancing self-optimizing reactors and Industry 4.0 in chemical manufacturing.