Long standing collaboration between ISIS and Johnson Matthey is extended for another five years
09 Feb 2026 - Rosie de Laune
The science and chemicals company Johnson Matthey has a unique connection with ISIS; as well as using the facility regularly for a variety of experiments, there are much more collaborative links. This includes jointly funding PhD students and a research fellow based at ISIS.
Johnson Matthey (JM) is a specialty chemicals and sustainable technologies company, with well-established interests in platinum group metals, hydrogen technologies, and applied heterogeneous catalysis and reaction engineering. Due to the ability of neutrons to penetrate deep into samples and answer the question of where atoms are and how they move, JM is a regular user of neutron techniques.
After many years of using ISIS for both collaborative and proprietary research, the collaboration developed into being about more than just beamtime and, in 2018, JM co-funded a research fellow position with ISIS. Hamish Cavaye became the first JM/ISIS Research Fellow with the remit to broaden JM’s understanding of neutron scattering and how it might apply to their research. After the initial three-year period, the agreement was adapted to a project-based framework agreement that was set to expire at the end of 2025. This agreement has now been extended for a further five years, demonstrating the benefits to both parties.
Hamish Cavaye has continued in his post since 2018, and part of his role is to help JM use neutron scattering techniques to address the research and development challenges they face within the business. This has included running tailored training for JM staff.
Neutron scattering offers unique insights for industry that are not widely utilised and having an embedded point of contact here makes the barrier to accessing those techniques that much lower.
Hamish Cavaye
“The appetite to extend this long-standing partnership for a further five years is strong evidence that JM see a benefit to working with ISIS,” says Hamish. “Neutron scattering offers unique insights for industry that are not widely utilised and having an embedded point of contact here makes the barrier to accessing those techniques that much lower.”
As well as Hamish’s position, the agreement has led to a number of joint PhD studentships. The most recent started in March 2025, funded through the EPSRC CASE scheme in partnership with Professor David Lennon at University of Glasgow.
The work of a previous joint student, co-supervised by ISIS’ Stewart Parker, characterised a pharmaceutical cocrystal, and was highlighted by the journal PCCP as a ‘Hot Article’ in 2025. Other students’ work has centred around the application of neutron scattering methods to interrogate aspects of zeolite catalysis, and the latest builds on a project that uses neutron imaging to see a catalyst operating in real-time during a chemical reaction.
