Dr Richard Pike has died at the age of 61. Dr Pike stood down as the RSC’s chief executive in February this year after five successful years at the helm of the learned society. Under his leadership, membership reached a record high of more than 47,500. Among other notable achievements, 10 new journal titles were launched and the number of chemical sciences articles published since Dr Pike joined in 2006 trebled.
He also steered the RSC into international waters, with several new offices opening in China, India and the United States. A fluent Japanese speaker, having spent five years in Japan while working as an executive for BP, Richard also oversaw plans for the opening of the RSC’s Tokyo office, which took place in July.
Born on 2 April, 1950, Dr Pike attended Gosport County Grammar School (later to become the comprehensive Bay House School) before studying at Downing College, Cambridge, where he gained a 1st Class BA in engineering in 1971. He gained a PhD in 1977, also from Cambridge, and his research work investigated experimental and theoretical aspects of vapour bubble dynamics in boiling liquids, focusing on the thermal and fluid characteristics of water and organic liquids in various gravitational fields, including Earth and zero gravity.
He was sponsored by BP as an undergraduate and went about studying Japanese during his time at college. This led to a 25-year career in British Petroleum (BP), where he held a number of technical and commercial positions in the UK and abroad. While working in Tokyo as General Manager, Chemicals, BP Far East, he was also appointed President, BP Chemicals, Japan and Director, Samsung-BP Chemicals, South Korea.
Upon returning to the UK, Dr Pike became Director General of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers – a position he held for five years. He moved on to become senior associate at Gaffney, Cline & Associates, advising on corporate strategy within the oil and gas industry.
In February 2006 he was appointed as the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry and said he looked forward to “ensuring that the RSC maintains and develops its role in championing the vital role that the chemical sciences and those who practise them play in the future prosperity and well-being of the population, economy and environment”.
It was a position he relished as Dr Pike quickly became the UK’s leading advocate of the chemical sciences through a sustained media campaign, allowing the RSC, combined with its parliamentary activities, to become a significant voice in science and education, acknowledged for its robust defence and worldwide promotion of the chemical sciences.
One of his best known initiatives was the ‘Five-Decade Challenge’, an exam for the brightest 16-year-old chemistry students taking in exam questions from the 1960s through to the 2000s. The results showed the pupils performed significantly worse on the older papers’ questions – Dr Pike said this demonstrated a lack of problem-solving ability, a problem stemming not from pupils or teachers but a flawed national science curriculum too focused on ‘hoop-jumping’.
He appeared on news channels and radio stations throughout last summer using his experience as a chemical engineer and former BP executive to explain to the nation the developments concerning the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. But raising standards in education was the one theme Dr Pike returned to throughout his time at the RSC, never missing an opportunity to question whether exam boards challenged British pupils enough while simultaneously highlighting the important role chemical scientists played in the health and well-being of the nation.
In the year Dr Pike stood down as chief executive, a record number of students began studying chemistry at UK universities.
