The Oxford Innovative Organic Synthesis for Cancer Research IDP (OxIOSCR) will seed a revolution in the practice of organic synthesis, by training graduate synthetic chemists for the first time to integrate seamlessly chemical, biocatalytic, and reagentless organic synthesis techniques with the latest advances in reaction technology. The synthetic chemistry will be shaped by a focus on target compounds with mechanism-based substantial anti-cancer activity. This will provide a strong interdisciplinary component to the training programme, by linking with Oxford’s extensive and world-class expertise in fundamental cancer biology and medicinal chemistry. The training programme will lead automatically to more sustainable synthetic routes, new strategies for organic synthesis, a more strongly connected network of chemists and cancer biologists, and will release a generation of fully trained synthesis innovators into the academic and chemical industrial workplace. OxIOSCR is strongly intersectoral, with close involvement of 7 Associated Partners distributed over 6 European countries, crossing academic/industrial, physical/medical science, and public/private sectors.