The laboratories are housed in the Purdie Building and the adjoining Centre for Biomolecular Sciences (CBMS), shown right. Chemical research has a long and distinguished history at St. Andrews.
In recent years, several named prizes of the Royal Society of Chemistry have been awarded to current members of the School. The School was rated as Excellent in the Teaching Quality Assessment of 1994 and is placed in the top 5 UK chemistry departments in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.