The Frank Pullen Scholarship

The BMSS is wholly committed to ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion in the Society’s activities. In March 2022, the BMSS Committee announced its new ‘BMSS Outreach Scholarship’ to widen participation in remote (digital) attendance at our annual meeting by those from low- and middle-income countries.

In 2025, the scholarship was relaunched as the "Frank Pullen Scholarship" in memory of Professor Frank Pullen, a much-loved and respected friend and colleague of the BMSS and the wider Mass Spectrometry Community. At the same time, the scheme's terms were also widened to incorporate digital participation at either a virtual Special Interest Group (SIG) Meetings or the digital BMSS Introduction to Mass Spectrometry Course, where available. 

The scheme aims to:

  • Widen participation in the BMSS community, specifically the annual conference
  • Engage with international audiences to nurture relationships with overseas colleagues 
  • Encourage networking with our international colleagues from low and middle-income countries
  • Facilitate research presentation (in a digital format) from international colleagues that would be unlikely to be able to travel to the UK to attend our meeting in person
  • Provide under-represented communities with an inspiring engagement opportunity

Professor Frank Pullen

 

“Professor Frank Pullen (always known as Frank to everyone)  was a champion of engagement, widening participation, support for individuals and outreach throughout his career, be that during his time in industry, academia and his time with BMSS and the BMSS Committee.  His ‘why not’ and ‘just do it’ attitude inspired many and followed those he influenced throughout their careers. The renaming of the BMSS Outreach initiative to include Frank’s name and become ‘The Frank Pullen Outreach Scholarship’ is a fitting tribute to him, his mindset and efforts to broaden access to mass spectrometry, and his legacy to BMSS.”

Frank served BMSS and British mass spectrometry in many different ways during his career, including BMSS committee member, Vice-Chair, Chair, BMSS Lecturer, as a member of the Edinburgh IMSC organising Committee and as a member of the BMSS Advisory Board. He was a constant supporter of BMSS meetings with regular attendance, serving as an adjudicator for Barber and Bordoli prizes on many occasions and through the delivery of numerous presentations.  Frank trained and inspired many mass spectrometrists through his time in the Pharmaceutical industry and then in Academia. He was a vocal advocate for training and developing new mass spectrometrists and always made time to be available to network and inspire early career scientists at BMSS meetings. Furthermore, Frank spent time throughout his industrial career providing lectures on mass spectrometry and opportunities in industry for mass spectrometrists.  He championed accessibility and the need for industry to fund fundamental research in analytical chemistry and in particular mass spectrometry and has provided knowledge and advice to many postgraduate students.

Brief CV:

Roles:

Professor of Pharmaceutical Analysis, University of Greenwich Oct 2009 - Aug 2016
Senior Director and Director, Pfizer R&D Aug 1993-Sep 2009
Mass spectrometry team leader Pfizer Global R&D Aug 1987 - Aug 1993
Mass Spectrometrist, Wellcome Research Labs Aug 1971 - Jul 1987

Education:

The School of Pharmacy, University of London: PhD, Analytical Chemistry 1983 - 1987

Built a novel LC-MS instrument under the supervision of Dr Mike Baldwin (SoP) and Dr Dave Ashton (Wellcome)

Thames Polytechnic: HNC, analytical endorsement, GRSC, Chemistry 1971 - 1977

Scheme Details:

The Frank Pullen scholarship is targeted at enabling people to attend the online component of our annual conference. The fund specifically aims to support those for whom there are specific barriers to in situ attendance, be they related to geography, disability or carer status. We recognise that there are many reasons why a member of BMSS may be unable to attend the face-to-face conference, as diverse as our membership, and that online attendance supports continued engagement with the research presented at our conference in a flexible format.

The scholarship will provide online attendance fee support for one applicant per annual conference. Where online attendance is possible at SIG (Special Interest Group) meetings or digital attendance at a BMSS Introduction to Mass Spectrometry Training Course.

The Carer’s Support Grant is also available to support additional costs incurred for carers wishing to attend in person at our meetings and provides an additional mechanism to enable our members to attend meetings.

Eligibility:

  1. Assistance is only available to BMSS members of three calendar months standing at the close of the call who are aged 18 or over, and reside in low and middle-income countries as listed here.
  2. All members from low and middle-income countries are eligible to apply.
  3. Only one application per person to attend one online event per year will be considered.
  4. The applicant must demonstrate how they will personally benefit (in terms of their personal development) from this scholarship.
  5. The BMSS Committee will limit the number of awards made to any one individual and reserves the right to limit the number of awards to a single organisation/institution or department.

Terms and Conditions:

  1. If applying to attend a scientific meeting, the successful applicants will be asked to acknowledge the BMSS in their presentation by including a copy of the BMSS logo (members can download here).
  2. The successful applicant must produce a report of no more than 2 pages to be sent to the BMSS Education Officer within three months of the event end date, describing how they have benefitted from online attendance at the event. The BMSS Committee may elect to publish the report in the BMSS Newsletter, on  BMSS web pages and social media pages, or in other similar BMSS material; therefore, the attendance report should be of good quality and concise.

Applications:

Applications will be assessed on an individual basis and judged on the scientific excellence, personal development of the applicant and host support. 

When participating in an online meeting, where applicable applicants are normally expected to submit an abstract to present at the conference in a digital capacity (a digital poster).

Members: please click here to download an application form. 

Applications should be emailed to the BMSS Administrator: admin@bmss.org.uk

Enquiries:

Enquiries should also be directed to the BMSS Education Officer: education@bmss.org.uk