Alarm after one in four university physics departments warn they may have to close

Heads of UK physics departments say their subject faces a national crisis, with one in four warning that their university departments are in danger of closing due to funding pressures.

- Richard Adams Education editor

In an anonymous survey of department heads by the Institute of Physics (IoP), 26% said they faced potential closure of their department within the next two years, while 60% said they expected courses to be reduced.

Four out of five departments said they were making staff cuts, and many were already considering mergers or consolidation, in what senior physicists described as a severe threat to the UK's future success.

A head of physics at one university said: "Our university has a £30m deficit. Staff recruitment is frozen, morale is low. Yet colleagues in our school continue to deliver with less and less, and under increasing pressure. I'm very concerned that we are close to breaking point."

Prof Daniel Thomas, the chair of the IoP's heads of physics forum and head of the University of Portsmouth's school of mathematics and physics, said the survey's findings were "a great concern" for UK leadership in key areas.