Added: Over a year ago by Fujifilm
Last year, Ben Mays passed a Fujifilm-funded BSc Honours in Chemistry degree with a First alongside a Laboratory Scientist Level 6 apprenticeship qualification. The impressive achievement marked the culmination of five years of effort. Soon after, he was promoted to a chemist in the Industrial Group within Research & Development (R&D) at Broadstairs in Kent.
Ben says: “I’d be lying if I said it was a cakewalk, but you don’t realise how much help and relief there is in having an entire R&D department around you, full of experts who can help you with tricky aspects of the course.”
The Group believes in developing home-grown talent because people are as central to its long-term future as the inkjet ink technologies and pigment dispersions it researches, develops, and produces.
There are three operating sites: R&D and manufacturing UV curable inks and pigment dispersions in Broadstairs, an engineering hub in Cambridge that supports chemists, and a plant in Grangemouth in Scotland, with R&D and manufacturing dedicated to water-based pigment dispersions.
The Industrial Group in R&D specialises in single-pass systems for applications such as packaging and labels, where reels of those substrates are printed and cured quickly with high-intensity UV-LED.
At Broadstairs, four R&D sections employ section heads, chemists and senior technicians who use the services of a pool of laboratory technicians. It’s primarily the lab technicians who apply to the company’s popular sponsored degrees programme.
For various reasons, not least of which is the cost of a degree, many employees will have science-based A levels but decide not to go to university after school. For example, Ben had A levels in biology, chemistry, physics and maths and joined Fujifilm from a local school as a technician in 2013.
At job interviews, Fujifilm explains that if a technician wants to progress beyond their role and become a chemist, for which they need a chemistry degree, it will offer them the chance.
Invitations to apply for a sponsored degree on day release to the University of Greenwich are issued annually. Fujifilm runs an interview process because the programme is always oversubscribed. The company also needs to know that people will dedicate themselves to finishing the course as it’s challenging to fit in learning and revision while working full-time.
Until recently, Fujifilm directly funded a straight chemistry degree. When the government brought in apprenticeship degrees, it switched to offering an apprenticeship incorporating a degree. The apprenticeship element began in Ben’s third year of his degree, so he had to squeeze five years’ worth of work into three.
An apprenticeship alongside a degree ties in what people learn at university with what they do at work. For example, Ben applied university knowledge and theory gained from scientific papers on inkjets, the industry, and relevant chemistry to what he did at Broadstairs for his dissertation on the efficiency of materials used in Fujifilm inks and the best combinations.
Ben adds. “It feels a more holistic way of doing a university course than being thrown in at the deep end straight from school.” So, has Ben’s passion for science, a job based on chemistry, and his university and apprenticeship qualifications made him want to stay at Fujifilm?
Ben says: “I have no plans to go anywhere. I’d like to progress as far as I can, continuing to prove I can get better. I’m using many tools gained from university to help work my way up. I love proving I can make a difference, that I’m an asset worth investing in and a success for the company and everyone around me. I also enjoy my time here. It’s very much a win, win, win.”
