Demand for Radical Solutions to Science Crisis

The Government must overhaul the way science subjects are funded, or risk missing out on key economic goals, an all-party committee of MPs said yesterday. (THURS)

The warning comes as a number of university science departments, including the pure physics course at Newcastle University, have been closed down, putting national provision of science subjects in jeopardy.

MPs on the Commons Science and Technology Committee said science is at the heart of the Government’s political and economic agendas, yet numbers of students have been dropping for several years. To reverse the decline in students taking up these subjects, the Government urgently needs to address its root cause by tackling the quality of science teaching, the committee report said.

The committee also called for a radical solution under which each university plays to its strengths, rather than competing for research funds. The MPs say their recommended “hub and spokes” model would reduce the strain on resources by encouraging universities to specialise and to collaborate to ensure provision of research and teaching.

Committee chairman Dr Ian Gibson said: “There have already been too many closures of university science departments. The Government can’t keep papering over the cracks and hoping that this problem will go away.

A radical solution is needed. The Government needs to bang the heads of vice-chancellors together until they start looking beyond their own doorsteps to the wider national interest. Otherwise it can kiss goodbye to its economic goals.”

Prof Malcolm Young, head of Newcastle University’s faculty of science, told the committee science subjects in universities faced a funding crisis.