Richard Templer is Chair of Biophysical Chemistry and Head of the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London. Professor Templer has a varied background, which includes the development of thermoluminescence techniques for dating ceramics, the development of novel, high sensitivity X-ray imaging devices, research into the phase behaviour, structure and energetics of lyotropic liquid crystals and the study of the interactions between membranes and proteins. Over the past decade he has been concerned with finding ways of educating physical scientists to work with biological scientists. To this end he helped to create the postgraduate schools in Biomolecular Science and Chemical Biology, both of which run under the umbrella of the Chemical Biology Centre, an organisation that runs between Imperial College, the Institute for Cancer Research and the London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK. This now includes the first EU Marie Curie Centre in Chemical Biology. He is also the Chair of the Biophysical Chemistry Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an Editor of Interface.

He is a member of the EPSRC TOP Panel. He is also a member of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 Sub Panel on Chemistry.