We involve students in research to increase their interest in the field – Gevorg Grigoryan

We spoke with Gevorg Grigoryan, Head of the Chair of Physical and Colloid Chemistry and winner of YSU's annual Teaching Excellence Award in the Natural Sciences category, about involving students in research, modern teaching methods, research activities and the chair's achievements.

– Mr Grigoryan, you received YSU's Teaching Excellence Award. What does this award mean to you?

– This award is the highest recognition of a lecturer's work. It is an appreciation not only of my work, but also of the positive changes that have taken place at the Faculty of Chemistry in recent years and of the healthy academic environment that has developed there.

For me, teaching has never been merely about passing knowledge. It is a responsibility to help young people believe in their abilities, think, ask questions and find their answers. 

Our goal is to generate interest in chemistry among prospective students, and working with school students is one of the ways we do this. School students visit the faculty and become familiar with our experiments and equipment. I should note that, thanks to the work of our faculty's lecturers in recent years, the number of applicants has increased significantly.

It is also very important for students' interest to continue developing after they enroll at the Faculty of Chemistry. For this purpose, we involve first- and second-year students in research activities. For example, we have two students whom we have involved in research since their first year, and I can say that they are already among the most proficient users of our measuring instruments. 

– You emphasized the importance of increasing students' interest. Physical and colloid chemistry, for example, is considered quite difficult to grasp. How do you increase their interest in the subject? Is it only by involving them in research, or do you also use new approaches, digital tools or new laboratory methods?

– Purely traditional teaching is gradually falling out of use. The flipped classroom approach is being used more widely, with students actively involved in the teaching process: materials are provided in advance, classes are conducted in a question-and-answer format, and the previous lesson is reviewed. Students themselves prepare and present some topics.

We have students who, from their first year, work not only with us but also at various research institutes, for example, the Institutes of Chemical Physics and General and Inorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, which also have laboratory facilities and equipment. When students themselves master a particular method and present it to their peers, the others tend to listen with greater interest.

As part of their research activities, students are involved in laboratory work and grant-funded projects, which also allow them to see the results of their work as articles in highly ranked journals. It should be noted that three students from the Faculty of Chemistry are involved in a thematic grant project currently being implemented at the chair with funding from the Higher Education and Science Committee of Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport. 

– The university places importance on maintaining continuous ties with alumni. Has your chair tried to involve successful alumni working in the field in improving or revising academic programs?

– Of course. We cooperate with our alumni in both teaching and research. We also make use of equipment that is not available at the university. For example, last year the part of the teaching process related to the fluorescence spectrometer was carried out at the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry after M.G. Manvelyan of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. 

Our alumni who work at research institutes also teach within the faculty's bachelor's and master's programs. Several years ago, we revised the "Chemistry" bachelor's program by introducing a number of highly specialized courses in areas where there are relatively few specialists in Armenia. 

We are currently aligning the "Chemistry" master's program with the bachelor's program. As part of this process, we are holding discussions with specialists from institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia with a view to involving them in teaching at the master's level.

– Your chair is particularly active in publishing research articles. What accounts for this activity: the acquisition of new equipment, or also the professional development of lecturers? Please also tell us how many articles chair staff have published over the past year in journals indexed in Scopus, and how many of them are ranked Q1 and Q2. 

– Our chair has always stood out for its research activity. Its staff has extensive experience in studying the physicochemical properties of systems of chemical and biological significance. Data from our research articles published in reputable journals, concerning systematic and comprehensive physicochemical studies of sulfur-containing organic compounds - sulfoxides and sulfones - are used as reference data in international encyclopaedias and handbooks. The state-of-the-art equipment acquired in recent years is very important because it enables us to conduct more comprehensive research. 

The chair's main research areas include studies of the physicochemical properties of solutions of bioactive substances, intermolecular interactions and complex formation using both spectroscopic and physical methods of analysis, as well as theoretical calculations. Our research also covers nanoparticles in systems such as micellar systems of surfactants and colloidal solutions of bioactive substances.

Since June 2025, researchers at the chair have published 10 scientific articles, three of them in Q1 journals and another three in Q2 journals. Given that the chair has only seven staff members, this is quite a high figure. Four more articles are currently under review.

– During your time as head of the Chair of Physical and Colloid Chemistry, how many pieces of equipment have been acquired for the chair's laboratories?

– With grants from the Higher Education and Science Committee of Armenia's Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport and with my direct involvement, we have acquired four new instruments: an Analytik Jena SPECORD 210 PLUS double-beam UV/Vis spectrophotometer, an Anton Paar LOVIS 2000 M microviscometer, a KRÜSS TENSÍÍO multifunctional tensiometer and a KNAUER K-7400S micro-osmometer.

Last year, using university funds, we also acquired an automatic melting point apparatus and a Mettler Toledo S470-Kit multifunctional conductivity and pH meter, which, incidentally, is among the best instruments of its kind.

We have also secured two additional grants from the Higher Education and Science Committee. One will fund a spectrofluorometer with a picosecond photon detector, which will be a unique and distinctive research instrument in Armenia. It is intended not only for recording fluorescence spectra, but also for measuring the steady-state characteristics of fluorophores and fluorescence lifetimes in the picosecond range. The instrument can also automatically determine the absolute quantum yield of luminophores. This is extremely important when studying the luminescent properties of solid and powdered materials. 

The other grant will fund an uninterruptible power supply system, specifically a diesel generator, for the building housing the Faculty of Chemistry and the Institute of Pharmacy. The idea of acquiring this system arose after a new instrument was damaged by a power fluctuation. The equipment will be installed outside and connected to the substation so that, in the event of a power outage, the building - including the Faculty of Chemistry, the Institute of Pharmacy and, to some extent, the Faculty of Geography and Geology - will automatically be supplied with electricity.

In addition, all instruments in the Faculty of Chemistry's spectroscopy and high-precision laboratories will be connected to high-capacity uninterruptible power supply units, or UPS systems, to keep them operating until the backup diesel generator starts.