Two UK universities are proposing to close their chemistry courses and senior academics are warning that department closures could become commonplace if the financial challenges facing the country’s higher education sector are not addressed. Significant redundancies already reported by other universities could point to future chemistry department closures.
In July, the head of chemistry at the University of Hull, Tim Prior, shared on LinkedIn that the university has proposed closing its chemistry department and called on alumni to oppose the changes.
That news followed the announcement in February by Aston University that it plans to close its BSc chemistry and BSc applied chemistry courses from September 2025 due to ‘changes in educational focus and alignment’.
Stephen Worrall, a lecturer in chemistry at Aston, told Chemistry World that the main drivers behind the university’s planned course closures were money and efficiency. ‘It’s to try and create a non-UK style of university education, where the first year at university is quite general,’ he explains. ‘So, what is coming in in 2025 is shared first years across three or four programmes that are deemed to share sufficient content in the first year.’
Worrall notes that that accreditation requirements for chemistry degrees ‘require 100 lab hours per year, 300 hours across the programme [and] that’s very hard to fit into a combined framework’.
He adds that chemistry is also inherently expensive to teach. ‘Universities receive a top-up payment per chemistry student, far more than any other subject. But is that enough? It’s probably economies of scale – historically, we’re only a small chemistry group.’
According to Worrall, the department prepared a detailed response opposing the university’s proposals, but the plans to close the chemistry courses will now go ahead. ‘The initial documentation suggested that we could close undergraduate chemistry and then offer MScs in chemistry without an undergrad basis and we said no,’ he adds. ‘So small changes were made, but the thrust of it didn’t really go away.’
‘We tried, we talked to the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) about what was possible and we tried to do as much as we could, but in the end it was deemed not feasible.’
‘A shame on so many levels’
Alongside the proposals, Aston University simultaneously ran a voluntary severance scheme. Three members of the chemistry programme decided to take the package on offer, including the deputy head of department, Rob Evans. Colleagues in chemical engineering, including head of department, Jiawei Wang, have also found employment elsewhere.
‘From my own point of view, it’s a shame on so many levels that they’ve decided to close down chemistry courses at Aston,’ says Evans, who left at the end of August. ‘While there are strong and understandable reasons why the financial situations of departments and universities have to be under increasing scrutiny, the situation here feels like an opportunity missed and will cause a significant amount of damage to students, staff and chemical science in the UK.’
Evans says that several plans to improve recruitment had been suggested, with an MChem paused just 10 days after getting the final approval to start recruiting. ‘Aston’s chemistry and applied chemistry courses have maintained consistently excellent student satisfaction scores as reported by the National Student Survey,’ he adds. ‘The students we teach here in Aston are from a highly diverse background. In 2021–22, over three-quarters of our students were from a minority background, compared [with around] 25% for chemistry nationwide. With other chemistry departments in the West Midlands also at risk or already shut down, this is a group of students that may be lost to higher education.’
Stephen Garrett, pro-vice chancellor of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Aston University, told Chemistry World the college was focused on preparing students for a ‘technologically advanced future’ and that, in order to offer the maximum value to students and beneficiaries, the decision was made to close the two courses.
‘Our focus is now on continuing to deliver an excellent experience for all current students until the end of their study period,’ he adds. ‘Moving forward we will be growing our chemical engineering programme, aligning to Aston University’s 2030 strategy to equip communities with the emerging and advanced skills needed for the future of work within a global knowledge-based economy.’
Aston University is still taking on new students this September and both chemistry courses are being put into clearing.
‘The plan is that any students who are here will be taught in a way that will keep their RSC accreditation intact,’ says Worrall. ‘We are shedding optional modules because [they’re] not part of the contract with students. It’s not ideal, we’re losing good content, they’re losing choice. But if you’re losing a third of the staff, something’s got to give.’
Hamstrung and ignored
A current member of staff in the chemistry department at Hull who did not want to be named says there were a variety of issues leading up to the proposed closure. ‘We’ve not done well with the student number cap being removed, that’s hit us really hard – other places have expanded and we haven’t,’ they note. ‘As a department of chemistry we lost our visibility on the University of Hull website for a long time – that was problematic. The name chemistry disappeared and we had people asking: “Does chemistry still exist in Hull?”’
In terms of timelines for the proposed closure, Hull chemistry department is currently in the consultation phase. However, the staff member that Chemistry World spoke with says that they ‘have little faith that anything we say will be listened to’.
Earlier in the year, the department was asked to prepare proposals for a reinvigorated set of programmes that would be more attractive to prospective students. However, the staff member says that these proposals were ‘ignored’ and soon after the university decided to cancel two MSc chemistry programmes that recruit significant overseas students.
‘Chemistry in Hull was number one for student satisfaction for chemistry in England in 2021 and we were top 10 and number one in Yorkshire in 2022 for student satisfaction,’ the staff member says. ‘But there does not seem to have been any great appetite to celebrate and reinvigorate chemistry from the management here in Hull.’
Students studying chemistry in the department have been told that their teaching is assured for one year only. ‘Within those proposals, teaching of undergraduate chemistry for all programmes will have to stop at the end of the academic year 24/25. This will leave some students unable to finish their degree courses,’ the staff member says.
They add that the university has been clear that while the closure is still only proposed there is no need to think about what will happen to students just yet. ‘I think that’s wrong – students should be involved in this discussion so they are aware of their futures,’ they say.
The staff member notes cuts are being proposed across the whole of the university, with around a third of staff in danger of losing their jobs. Given this situation, they note that chemistry faculty were not surprised at the proposals to close the department, but more detail about the reasons behind them would have been appreciated.
‘As educated people and people used to dealing with data, staff were looking for an open and transparent demonstration of why chemistry is no longer viable in Hull. I don’t think there has been that openness and transparency about numbers, about financial detail yet, which is disappointing,’ they say. ‘The real problem is our students are being screwed over – they’ve just had the rug pulled from under them … just to stop teaching and not to fulfil your commitment to these students to teach out is really unfortunate.’
A spokesperson for the university told Chemistry World that ‘in common with most universities’, Hull was ‘not exempt’ from the ‘significant challenges’ faced by the higher education sector.
‘These challenges include a significant reduction in international student applications and changes in UK student recruitment application patterns, which have led to a drop in income whilst other costs continue to rise,’ the university said. ‘We now need to make some difficult decisions, including reorganising parts of the university, to both maintain our financial sustainability and to grow and develop. We have spoken to colleagues and we are at the early stages of a change process, which we expect to complete towards the end of the year.’
Annette Doherty, president of the RSC, is ‘extremely concerned’ by the impact of funding challenges facing higher education in the UK and the potential long-term repercussions this could have on chemistry in the country.
Long-term repercussions
‘The impending department closure in Hull and course closures at Aston University only serve to highlight the severity of the financial sustainability problems affecting higher education institutions,’ Doherty says. ‘We believe there could be more to come so action must be taken quickly to safeguard the UK’s future science skills and science base, to enable sustained economic growth.’
Doherty says data from the RSC shows that the chemistry workforce is expected to grow at a faster rate than the economy as a whole over the next decade but that this will only be possible, if universities and further education colleges can develop high-quality talent to fill these roles.
‘We know that businesses need a workforce with practical skills, for laboratory-based jobs and to address many challenges, among them developing environmentally sustainable products. Failing to invest in chemistry now means we are failing to invest in our national future as scientific pioneers,’ she says. ‘Closing a chemistry department is like demolishing the middle house in a terrace, as the ripple effects will extend to other Stem departments and in turn undermine the UK’s long-term scientific ambitions.’
Other departments that have been facing significant challenges include the chemistry and chemical engineering division at Huddersfield, which lost around a third of its academic staff over the summer of 2023 with many made redundant or taking voluntary redundancy.
‘Within chemistry itself, we have seen a significant drop-off in enrolled student numbers at undergraduate level over the last 10 years,’ says head of Huddersfield’s chemistry department Karl Hemming. ‘The undergraduate home student fee has remained static whilst staffing costs (pay, pensions), non-staffing costs (energy bills, equipment) have all increased. Given that costs for laboratory-based subjects are high anyway, the fee freeze, increasing costs and falling student numbers have together resulted in a deficit in the School of Applied Sciences, which the school addressed with cuts to staffing in chemistry, forensic science and chemical engineering last summer,’ Hemming notes. ‘As you can imagine, the atmosphere created by the wider restructure and associated staff losses is not good and staff are expecting more changes to come.’
Wendy Brown, a chemist from the University of Sussex who chairs the Heads of Chemistry UK group (HCUK), says that more departments will be at risk of closure if action is not taken. ‘I would say that if university finances don’t change in a relatively short length of time there will be others – it’s pretty much a guarantee,’ she says. ‘A lot of the Russell Group universities are really going to be hit if there is a further clampdown on student visas and overseas students. Either the fees need to increase or accompanying funding from the government needs to happen.’
Brown says that HCUK is ‘hopeful’ that the new government will start to look at the issue. ‘A change of government is always a time when there’s possibilities for changes of policy in various areas,’ she adds. ‘We’ve been talking about the financial health of chemistry departments in HCUK now for a while and we’re going to carry on talking about this. I don’t think you’d talk to any other university who wouldn’t say the same.’
Correction: The article was updated on 11 September 2024 to clarify who at Aston University took the severance package and Jiawei Wang’s title.
1 Reader's comment