Memorandum submitted by The Institute
of Physics
THE ROLE
OF UNIVERSITIES
OVER THE
5-10 YEARS
What do students want from universities?
The average student would expect a university
education to enable them to embark on a rewarding career path,
and provide them with an opportunity to learn more about the world
in which they live, through their given subject of study. University
degree courses should be both stimulating and interesting in order
to engage students, while also providing them with a set of generic
skills and must avoid being too narrowly vocational.
A degree in physics meets all of these criteria.
Physics higher education trains and equips highly able students
with the skills and competencies necessary for them to pursue
fulfilling careers that contribute to the nation's wealth and
health. Physics education also develops strong intellectual and
practical skills, well matched to the evolving needs of employers.
During the course of their study, physics students
become conscious of the career value of their training in physics,
but above all it is their curiosity and love for the subject that
university physics departments need to satisfy, especially if
the subject itself is to continue to appeal to young people.
The nature of the benefits accrued from studying
physics at university was highlighted in a joint report the Institute
published with the Royal Society of Chemistry in January 2005.
The economic benefits of higher education qualifications,[102]
revealed that physics and chemistry graduates in the UK earn more
than graduates from most other disciplines.
Over a working life, the average graduate will
earn around 23% more than his/her equivalent holding two or more
A levels, compared with 30% more for physics and chemistry graduates.
The figure of 30% compares between 13-16% for graduates in subjects
including psychology, biological sciences, linguistics, and history.
Based on this, it is imperative that an educated
student market deciding what degrees to undertake is created.
A significant problem facing science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) subjects, and particularly physics, is
that students are making ill-informed decisions about their careers
at the age of 15. Students at this age, irrespective of whether
they are girls, from ethnic minorities etc., are not well-educated
consumers. Teachers, parents, careers advisors should be in a
position to highlight the benefits and the wide variety of career
options that are available from STEM subjects.
What do employers want from graduates?
As part of the Institute's Undergraduate Physics
Inquiry[103]
of 2001, a survey was undertaken of the views of employers of
physicists. The following views, which are still worth considering,
emerged.
There was a high demand for good physics graduates,
with some employers having difficulty recruiting. Physicists find
employment in a wide range of sectors, often far from what would
conventionally be attributed to physics. What is frequently sought
is a combination of good technical and analytical skills combined
with good team-working and communications skills. In addition
to the very strong national demand for physicists with the traditional
skills of quantitative analysis, data handling and experimentation,
employers are requiring scientists with interdisciplinary skills.
Employers value the following attributes of
physics graduates:
— flexibility and versatility to tackle
a wide range of technical and non-technical subjects;
— good analytical and problem-solving
skills;
— good mathematical and IT skills;
— a good breadth of technical interest
and ability;
— a good understanding of fundamentals
from which to approach new situations where traditional approaches
do not work;
— analytical problem-solving capabilities;
— an ability to grasp concepts quickly
and in a quantitative way (more important than knowledge of a
particular specialism); and
— an ability "to argue on one's
feet".
Employers would also like to see:
— improved social, interpersonal and
team-working skills;
— better communication skills, particularly
written skills;
— a less academic and more pragmatic
approach;
— improved business awareness; and
— a greater awareness that not all
problems can be solved by logic alone.
The general view from the survey was that after
graduates have been with a company for a few years there is little
to distinguish between graduates in physics, electrical engineering,
other engineering, mathematics or (to a lesser extent) chemistry.
The key issue for employers of physicists appears to be in combining
the technical, analytical and problem-solving skills (in which
physics and engineering graduates tend to be strong) with the
"softer" communication and team-working skills (in which
they tend to be weaker).
What should the Government, and society more broadly,
want from HE?
The most important aspect of higher education
(HE) is to have policies that encourage everyone to make the most
of their potential—the country certainly needs a skilled
workforce, especially those with an education and understanding
of STEM. The Government's initiatives to widen participation,
especially to attract more students from lower socio-economic
groups, are welcome, as the UK will benefit from a greater cohort
of students who choose to study, amongst others, STEM subjects
at university. To that end, the Institute is working with HEFCE
on a pilot project, Stimulating Physics,[104]
which aims to strenghten access to and demand for undergraduate
physics degrees. The support for this pilot project is an indication
that the Government appreciates the needs of the UK to have a
healthy pool of STEM graduates.
The future strength of the STEM base is crucially
dependent on the flow of quality young people into it. As highlighted
in SET for Success[105]
: " ... graduates and postgraduates in strong numerical subjects,
are in increasing demand in the economy—to work in R&D,
but also to work in other sectors (such as financial services
or ICT) where there is strong demand for their skills." Physicists
fall squarely into this category. SET for Success, reported
that the "disconnect" between the demand for skilled
graduates and the declining number of STEM graduates on the other
hand, is starting to result in skills shortages.
Therefore, it is imperative, that if the UK
wishes to maintain its competitive advantage it will need to maintain
a steady flow of STEM, especially, physics graduates, who will
not only engage in high quality basic and applied research, such
as in the energy sector, but contribute their unique pragmatic,
problem-solving and mathematical skills to a wide variety of careers
such as law, the finance sector, environmental science, and medical
physics. This flow, even though steady at present, is under threat
as a consequence of departmental closures, and an ever dwindling
number of physics A level students, the crisis in the teaching
of physics in schools, and an expansion in the HE market with
students choosing a variety of degree subjects (ie drama studies,
media studies, etc.), which often do not match the demands of
employers. It is difficult to see how society has benefited from
this expansion and there should be some evaluation of the long-term
career prospects.
In addition, the Government, in terms of taxes
and the return on investment, has much to gain by increasing the
numbers of students choosing to study STEM subjects. The economic
benefits report demonstrated that physics and chemistry graduates
pay approximately £135,000 more in tax than those with A
levels and £40,000 more than the average graduate during
their working lives.
UNIVERSITY FUNDING
Is the current funding system fit for purpose?
Is the purpose clear?
The unit of resource provided by the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for teaching, in
particular, has not been sufficient to cover the full costs that
a laboratory-based STEM subject, such as physics, incurs, resulting
in the vast majority of departments operating in deficit, and
being kept open due to cross-subsidy from other university cost
centres. The prominent difficulty faced by physics at HE is stagnant
student numbers. While the overall cohort of undergraduate students
has increased, as a consequence of the Government's drive to see
50% of 18-30-year-olds in HE by 2010, the pool of undergraduates
reading physics (and astronomy) at university has remained steady,
which means that the overall pot of money available to physics
has decreased accordingly in real terms. This has led to pressures
to recruit more students, to cover the costs of teaching, and
where this has not been possible, departmental closures and mergers
have occurred (over 20 since 1997).
A study commissioned by the Institute this year
has spread light on the nature of the financial pressures being
faced by physics departments. The Study of the Finances of
Physics Departments in English Universities,[106]
concluded that in 2003-04 all of the physics departments surveyed,
as part of the study, were in deficit on a full economic costing
(FEC) basis (ranging between 16-45% of their total income). In
part this reflected their very heavy dependence on public funding
and the metrics used to allocate those public funds. The report
concluded that the large fixed costs involved in the delivery
of the physics undergraduate programme, particularly in maintaining
and servicing teaching laboratories mean that sustained recruitment
is vital to the financial health of the departments surveyed.
Since 2004-05, the weighting for price band
B subjects in HEFCE's teaching funding formula, which includes
physics, has been 1.7. Even though, according to recent HEFCE
figures[107],
this has led to slightly more money per full time equivalent,
the unit of resource is still insufficient to reflect the true
costs of teaching. As already mentioned, this is partly as a consequence
of the overall support per science student having steadily decreased
in real terms over many years, due to the expansion in the overall
undergraduate cohort. HEFCE has argued that the high unit costs
of some laboratory-based STEM are perceived to be a result of
under recruitment. But this is far from obvious for physics because:
— physics undergraduate numbers have
not fallen (acceptances to undergraduate physics and astronomy
were 3085 in 1995, and 3069 in 2005 (UCAS));
— departments have closed and large
departments have become even larger leading to efficiency of costing;
and
— departments in deficit have severe
limits on spending and so their spending will possibly have been
lower than one might expect.
The Institute welcomes the efforts made by HEFCE,
in particular, to engage with it to increase the market share
for physics undergraduate degrees in the pilot project, but it
must be understood that this is a long-term solution to the demand-side
problem that physics will face. In the short-term there are grave
concerns that by the time the long-term measures start to take
an effect, the UK's physics university base could be suffering
with supply-side problems, as a consequence of further physics
department closures, which could be brought about by the forthcoming
2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), for instance.
The Institute's finance report revealed that
in 2003-04, the eight physics departments surveyed as part of
the study that were able to provide full Transparent Approach
to Costing (TRAC) cost data, were all in deficit of around 22%
of publicly funded teaching income. This deficit is significantly
higher than all subjects across the whole sector, which was broadly
in balance in 2003-04. Under the current funding regime, a significant
uplift in HEFCE grant would be required, given the fixed undergraduate
fee, to bring these physics departments into balance. Physics
departments are heavily dependent on public funding for their
teaching and research. Most universities use resource-allocation
models linked to earned income, so the financial position of physics
departments is particularly sensitive to the metrics that underlie
the funding allocations of the public funding bodies and to changes
in those metrics.
Hence, the Institute has campaigned for HEFCE
to reconsider the allocation of its teaching funds for STEM subjects,
in particular physics and chemistry. In response to this, the
Institute was pleased to note that the decision taken by HEFCE
to use TRAC based costing data to underpin key elements within
its teaching funding formula, which will report in 2007-08. This
means that in addition to the move to use the FEC for individual
research projects and the increased funding of project overheads
by the research councils in 2006-07, there is a real prospect
of an improvement in the financial position of physics departments.
Furthermore, the recent announcement from HEFCE, that as of 2007-08
it will allocate an additional £75 million over three years
(ie £1,000 per student) to strategically important subjects
such as physics, means that while we await the fruits of various
initiatives to increase student demand for undergraduate STEM
degrees, a financial respite is available to those departments
that are under serious financial pressure. Even though HEFCE has
argued the contrary, the announcement is an admission that the
funding formula for teaching has been inadequate.
However, this news came too late for the University
of Reading, which closed its physics department, stating that
it had deficits in the region of £500,000 and money from
HEFCE's announcement would only offer, on current student numbers,
around £180,000. Therefore, there could be quite a few departments
that could be under the threat of closure, as many are seen as
"in debt" in their university models, and there is a
need for vigilance as we estimate that at least a dozen are under
serious threat of closure.
What are the principles on which university funding
should be based?
The Institute is of the view that university
funding should be sufficient to allow every university to offer
undergraduate provision for core, strategic subjects, such as
physics. This certainly is not the case, as so many physics departments
have stopped offering undergraduate degree courses, since the
removal of the binary divide, mainly due to financial pressures
based on a stagnating student demand. Under the current funding
environment, it is essentially impossible to run a teaching led
physics department without running into serious problems. The
dysfunctional character of the HE market is of concern, whereby
university funding is determined by student choice, which is almost
entirely uninformed by career prospects. As a result, the recent
huge expansion of graduates has been in subjects such as media
studies, etc. It is difficult to see how this arrangement is benefiting
either the student or the economy.
Physics is by its nature a resource-intensive
subject to teach, in terms of both teaching staff and laboratory
provision. As industry's demands for graduates with a high degree
of technical knowledge and expertise increases, it is incumbent
upon universities to have modern facilities and equipment. The
cost of providing such equipment has risen at a faster rate than
inflation. Funding mechanisms should be sufficient to ensure that
departments teaching fast-moving disciplines, such as the laboratory-based
sciences, are able to move with the times and provide students
with the latest equipment to undertake experiments to supplement
their teaching.
Should the £3,000 cap on student fees be
lifted after 2009 and what might be the consequences for universities
and for students, including part-time students?
The Institute expressed concern about the effects
the introduction of top-up fees, in 2006-07, could have on student
demand for laboratory-based STEM subjects, such as physics, especially
from under-represented groups. A significant fraction of the undergraduate
cohort for these subjects is enrolled on four-year courses, hence
further financial pressures exist, which could affect their choice
of course. Such pressures also exacerbate recruitment into postgraduate
courses. Physics degree applicants could be driven away to cheaper
options. This would not be in the national interest, as at the
employers' level, there is high market demand for graduates in
these subjects.
The prospect of lifting the cap on student fees
will put an greater amount of financial pressure on an already
fragile student market for high cost subjects, such as physics,
as there will be an obvious temptation for universities with high
cost subjects, to increase fees to cover increasing costs, especially
if the teaching funding formula even after HEFCE's TRAC study
is insufficient and/or if student demand remains stagnant or declines.
We hope that before any such decision is taken, a robust review
will be undertaken to ascertain the impact top-up fees have had
on university finances, student finances (ie debt) and whether
they have had any significant bearing on student entry onto university
degree courses. Any decision to proceed with removing the cap,
without serious consideration of these issues, may lead to an
increase in the gap between the rich and the poor, and may result
in more departments closing due to positive feedback. In addition,
there is a danger that higher fees could lead to a market economy
that will not work properly unless students know which subjects
lead to the best career prospects.
However, according to the Institute's finance
report, the introduction of top-up fees should provide some increase
in the funding available to physics departments, as long as they
can sustain current levels of recruitment. However, the additional
sums available from this source for making good structural deficits
will at best be modest because most of the additional income will
be used for student bursaries, improved academic pay and investment
in teaching facilities. The key point from the report is if departments
can sustain current levels of recruitment. To help ensure this,
the Institute is allocating £1,000 per annum bursaries as
of 2006-07 to new enrolments for the duration of their studies.[108]
What should the Government be funding in HE and
by what means?
The Institute is pleased that the Government
has stated its commitment to support the dual support system of
funding.[109]
Dual support is by far the best mechanism by which university
departments can be supported structurally, support their teaching
activities, and allowing flexibility to support research activities
from the funding councils, while bidding for project money to
support basic and applied research from the research councils.
However, there is a concern that while the research council leg
of the dual support mechanism has grown in recent years, the funding
council end has been lagging behind, which has implications in
reducing the ability of universities to take more strategic decisions
about their research activities. This is something that needs
to be addressed.
The Government must continue to invest and support
initiatives such as the Science Research Infrastructure Fund (SRIF).
The first SRIF round was a £1 billion investment by government
(£775 million) and the Wellcome Trust (£225 million),
which included an allocation of £675 million of government
money to higher education institutions (HEIs) for science research
infrastructure.
A panel of international physicists that took
part in a second international review of the quality of UK physics
and astronomy research in November 2005,[110]
commented that they saw indications that SRIF has been a great
success, and that funds to support research infrastructure needs
had been well spent. In addition, this investment had led to an
improvement in the morale of the academic workforce, especially
amongst PhD students and young lecturers. Therefore, it is imperative
that the condition of the physical infrastructure is indeed maintained
and never allowed to deteriorate, as was the case in the past.
However, the Panel was concerned about what will happen after
the third round of SRIF finishes after 2008, as it is imperative
that the momentum of funds provided for infrastructure continue
at the current level.
Should central funding be used as a lever to achieve
government policy aims? Is the balance between core or block-funding
and policy-directed funding correct at present?
In terms of the Government's aim to increase
the cohort of 18-30-year-olds at university by 2010 to 50%, definitely
no. This government initiative has led to an influx of students
onto softer courses such as drama studies, while at the same time,
the cohort for physics has remained stable. An increased number
of overall students has led to additional strains placed upon
HEFCE's block grant within HEIs, which has led to teaching resources
for physics, and other STEM subjects, being squeezed, as the overall
pot size has not been increased sufficiently.
Such government initiatives (especially superficial
ones which offer no obvious benefit to the economy) should not
be funded via the block grant, and place such a strain on a resource
that at best was still not adequate to cover the costs of the
teaching of many laboratory-based STEM subjects.
Should research funding be based on selection
of "quality"? How should quality be defined and assessed?
How might this drive behaviour across the sector?
The Institute is of the view that research funding
should continue to be funded as measured by the quality of research
undertaken over a fixed-time period, via a robust peer review
system, supported by an appropriate array of research output metrics,
and other measures such as esteem and research environment.
Hence, the Institute was surprised and disappointed
at the recent announcement that the RAE will be replaced with
a metrics-based system and there will be no more peer review for
science, engineering and technology to assess research at universities.
The quality of research at university physics departments will
now be judged on data such as how much money they receive in grants
rather than the quality of their results and papers after research
is complete. Citation data, for instance, can vary widely across
a discipline, and is sensitive to the numbers working in the sub
area. The Institute does not agree with this method. The only
system that will have the respect and support of the science community
is peer review of research. We are also very surprised to learn
that whilst science, engineering and technology will lose peer
review assessment, other subjects will keep it. It is not clear
why this separation has been made.
There can be no doubt that the RAE has driven
up standards and made departments think more strategically about
their research activities. The negative impact however, has been
the move towards a cycle in appointments which are not sensible—a
tendency to poach mid-career staff rather than foster new, young
academics. The RAE has also seriously disadvantaged women on career
breaks. This is not consistent with the long-term competitiveness
of the science base. It is also an unanswered question whether
teaching quality has suffered as a result of the RAE.
The Institute is of the view that the RAE following
the 2008 exercise should be replaced by a new assessment system
that ameliorates the negative effect of only employing established
researchers at the expense of younger people with potential. Peer
review based on research outputs must be at the heart of the new
system. A metrics-based approach, as now proposed by the Government,
far from solving existing problems, will create new ones. It will
encourage expensive research, reward a high volume of research
over high quality research and make curiosity-driven research
harder to undertake. Theorists would be particularly hard hit
as their research grants tend to be smaller than those of experimentalists.
Hence, this needs to be reviewed without delay.
In terms of the forthcoming exercise in 2008,
the most crucial issue to the Institute and the physics community
is that the RAE must be an absolute measure of quality and not
a relative measure between units of assessment. We are concerned
that the physics sub-panel plans to "normalise" the
final distribution of distributions. Since the RAE began, low-scoring
physics departments have closed in relatively large numbers, so
the tail of the distribution has been removed, leading to a concentration
of quality in the remaining physics departments. This has now
reached a level where, if it continues, it will lead to serious
problems, for example, physics deserts, ie regions in the UK without
physics departments. Many of the remaining ones have actively
sought to improve their research capability. Therefore, the overall
standard has undoubtedly increased. There is absolutely no justification
to impose a pre-determined, artificial distribution to the ratings
and as a consequence doing further substantial damage to the sustainability
of the subject. Hence, some planning is required to ensure a rational
distribution of research excellence.
How can leading research universities reach internationally
competitive levels of funding? Should limited central-government
funding be directed elsewhere?
It is incumbent on such universities to exploit
the funding that is available from European Union (EU) initiatives
such as the Framework Programmes and over time through the European
Research Council, and from private sources such as industry and
charities. The Institute's finance study revealed that physics
departments are heavily dependent on public funding for their
income for teaching and research, but many were securing non-publicly
funds for research, hence there is scope for this to be expanded.
However, a concern relates to the problem of
the missing part of FEC for charity and EU funding. The principle
of transparency in use of funds argues against using funding from
one area to subsidise work in other areas. Charity support is
not equally distributed over all the sciences, but is concentrated
in medical areas. It is good that universities have some freedom
in deciding how to use their HEFCE income for strategic developments,
but it should not be the norm that quality-related (QR) income
"earned" by research excellence, for example, in a physics
department could be used to fund the missing FEC for charity-funded
medical research. The logical consequence of transparency is that
if the government wants universities to get the benefit of charity
and EU funding, it should either work with those bodies to get
them to pay the full FEC, or it should decide to provide explicit
funds to top-up charity and EU grants.
How well do universities manage their finances,
and what improvements, if any, need to be made?
A significant number of university physics departments,
are in deficit, as shown by the Institute's finance report, and
often are cross-subsidised from other university cost centres
to keep them afloat. In addition, even though the HEFCE's block
grant is allocated based on algorithms, universities have the
freedom to allocate funds according to the universities financial
or strategic plans and do not necessarily have to adhere to HEFCE's
allocation framework. Plus, we know that a lot of university research,
and particularly that which is industry funded, is often cross-subsidised
from funding streams such as QR, to cover the missing FEC costs.
The implementation of FEC and the use of TRAC were introduced
to alleviate these problems.
TRAC was developed by JM Consulting Ltd for
the Joint for the Joint Costing and Pricing Steering Group representing
all HEIs in the UK. It provides a basis for allocating out all
of the costs of HEIs to the income generating activities of the
HEI. The Government has accepted the TRAC methodology as a basis
for the development of a FEC approach to the research it funds
through research councils or directly through individual departments.
It has also indicated that it would expect universities to price
their research contracts with other clients (with the exception
of research charities and the EU), where specific conventions
apply, using a TRAC FEC approach.
The changes being made to funding methods for
teaching and research so that they better reflect the full economic
costs of activities are likely to be of particular benefit to
physics departments. In addition, TRAC is not only a costing and
pricing tool, but is at least as much a management tool for departmental
and central managers, so in time, the management of university
finances should improve.
Many universities are financially flexible but
one should not underestimate the power of the HEFCE subject allocations.
Because most physics departments are seen to be in deficit, they
are not in position to expand unless the university management
is benevolent. Perhaps university funding could be tied to long-term
plans, particularly in vulnerable, strategic subjects.
Are some parts of the sector too reliant on income
from overseas students?
As concluded from the Institute's finance report,
this is an area that physics departments should be exploiting
to increase their income. The report concluded that, evidence
from those departments that have specialist-taught postgraduate
programmes indicates that they can contribute significantly to
the financial health of a department. Physics departments therefore
need to examine their scope for running niche postgraduate-taught
programmes that may be able to command high fees from both home
(sponsored) and, particularly, overseas students. However, in
general, physics is most certainly not over reliant on overseas
students.
THE STRUCTURE
OF THE
HE SECTOR
Is the current structure of the HE sector appropriate
and sustainable for the future?
No, a major problem in the HE sector is that
university finances are being driven by student choice, which
would be fine if such choice was wholly informed. The recent expansion
in participation has had an emphasis, correctly, on the traditionally
under-represented groups. However, a side-effect of this emphasis
has been that subjects requiring specific skills and knowledge
on entry, such as STEM and the modern languages, have not benefited
from the increased number of students and their relative (in many
cases absolute) market share has decreased sharply. This is illustrated
by the fact that in 1995, physics undergraduate entrants made
up 1.16% of the total cohort; in 2005 that percentage fell to
0.78%.
The international panel of physicists summed
up the state of the HE sector as follows9:
"The Panel is deeply concerned to learn
that since the abolition of the binary divide between universities
and polytechnics, over 30% of the UK's physics and astronomy departments
have either closed or merged, resulting in physics ceasing to
be an identifiable discipline in a number of UK universities.
A continuation of this trend would threaten the UK's ability to
produce the volume of physics graduates needed for it to compete
on an international basis. The Panel is disturbed to find that
the financial health of university departments is to a significant
degree dependent on undergraduate numbers, which themselves depend
on career choices of young people in the secondary system. This
is not a good basis for strategic planning of the science base."
Large areas of the population and industry now
have no convenient access to a local university physics department
offering teaching or research. As the proportion of students living
at home increases, and as industry becomes more dependent upon
high-technology knowledge, these regions will suffer from a lack
of proximity to university physics. The Government, rightly, is
keen on increasing the number of women, ethnic minorities, and
lower-social classes in STEM. Among these groups there is a greater
likelihood of students choosing to live at home. But, if they
live in the East Anglia region, where will they go to study physics?
There is currently no undergraduate provision for physics at the
University of East Anglia, and the closest university to their
region, Cambridge, would not be a realistic proposition for many.
How well do structures and funding arrangements
fit with "diversity of mission"?
There seems to be no financial incentive at
all to maintain diversity in any strategic sense.
Is the current structure and funding affecting
growth of HE in FE and part-time study?
No comment.
How important are HE in FE and flexible learning
to the future of HE? Would this part of the sector grow faster
under different structure and funding arrangements?
No comment.
Can, and should, the Government be attempting
to shape the structure of the sector?
To a certain degree, yes it should. The Government
has already highlighted the importance of strategic subjects of
national importance, such as physics.[111]
By having done so, it has emphasised the need for the UK to produce
graduates in these disciplines in order for it to maintain its
competitive advantage.
It is of concern to note that HEFCE has no planning
remit, and therefore is unable to intervene when universities
choose to close departments, even though it has recently requested
vice-chancellors to inform them at an early stage if they are
planning any restructuring in disciplines that are deemed strategically
important and vulnerable. This is a laudable development, but
still renders HEFCE as a "bystander" as the final decision
as to whether a department is to be closed still rests with the
university. It is surprising that, despite numerous recent reappraisals
of the HE sector, there has been no attempt to find out which
graduates are best suited to the economy and have the best career
opportunities.
Is the Government's role one of planning, steering,
or allowing the market to operate?
The Government's role should be that of steering.
However, if and when there are problems in the system, such as
those linked to the closure of STEM departments, the Government
needs to take a stand and have in place a national strategy, whereby
it can ascertain the needs and requirements of the nation for
certain types of graduates.
The number of closures faced by physics is far
too high for the government to sit back and allow the market to
operate, with a "survival of the fittest" attitude.
Yes, following these closures the output of physics graduates
has remained stable, as larger, more financially secure departments
have absorbed increased student numbers in their regions. But,
the problem could soon reach a bottle-neck where due to a lack
of regional provision and students wishing to study more and more
at home, graduate numbers could dwindle, which will have a serious
impact on the UK's economy.
Should there be areas of government planning within
HE—eg for strategic subjects?
Yes, most definitely. As already mentioned,
since the current government came to office in 1997, over 20 physics
departments have either closed or merged. These closures, mainly
due to financial pressures based on a low student market for physics
degrees at these HEIs, have occurred randomly and haphazardly,
without any thought or planning in terms of regional needs.
It appears that the Government has made a choice
that HE in the UK is very broad with a very loose definition of
a university, which may not include STEM (out of 129 UK universities,[112]
only 46 currently have a provision for undergraduate physics degrees).
The Government may wish to consider whether a system that, apart
from a few vocational subjects like medicine, is based entirely
on student choice, is the best for employers and the nation.
The publication of the report, Strategically
important and vulnerable subjects,[113]
commissioned by HEFCE from an advisory group led by Professor
Sir Gareth Roberts, was a missed opportunity to announce a national
review for the provision of undergraduate STEM programmes. The
Institute was disappointed by the advisory group's recommendation
that HEFCE cannot and should not attempt to prescribe where subjects
should be provided. The Institute does not agree with this position,
as HEFCE is providing public funds to universities, and this level
of autonomy could only be warranted if universities were attracting
private funds to support teaching.
As a consequence of this recommendation, regrettably,
the tatus quo was maintained and vice-chancellors were
provided with no clear guidance on the need to support and sustain
STEM subjects within universities. Therefore, we urge the Government
to announce a national review of STEM provision alongside next
year's Comprehensive Spending Review, as an integral process in
the government's lauded 10-year science and innovation strategy.
What levers are available to the Government and
how effective are they?
The Government and HEFCE can put pressure on
vice-chancellors to do everything in their power to maintain and
sustain subjects of national and strategic importance. The £75
million in additional funds announced by HEFCE, will be allocated
with the proviso that no institution will be allowed to close
a strategic subject (which the funding is aimed to support) while
they are in receipt of this funding allocation. This is a step
in the right direction.
In terms of student numbers, one option would
be to put a cap on the number that can study courses at university
that offer poorer career returns, which may tempt more students
(with the requisite aptitude) to consider STEM subjects. Related
to this, there is an urgent need to improve upon the careers advice
that is provided. Careers advice in schools is widely thought
to be inadequate and careers advisors are rarely well-versed in
STEM subjects. Unsurprisingly, pupils are not able to determine
which subject choices are able to provide them with the best career
prospects, both in terms of salary and flexibility. Given the
general employability of physics graduates and the prospects of
an increasingly technological future, it appears surprising that
more able students are not taking physics A levels and degrees.
Is there a clear goal for the future shape of
the sector? Should there be one?
A clear goal certainly is not apparent. The
Government needs to undertake a review of what the UK will need
HE to deliver, in terms of its STEM graduate and research output,
in order for it to remain as a leading competitor nation, in view
of the economic strides being made by China and India. As far
as the Institute is concerned, this needs to go further than the
recent Leitch Review of skills in the UK, which in its large volume
of pages failed to mention STEM specifically in that context.
The Government's 2003 HE white paper[114]
hinted at the establishment of a two-tier university system, where
research would be concentrated in a few centres of excellence.
This would undoubtedly boost research effort, but at the expense
of separating more strongly than at present those universities
with a strong research base from others that might become teaching
only universities. Any such move is likely to lead to a large-scale
reduction in the provision of physics courses and this approach
may not then provide the undergraduates that the country so clearly
needs.
Assuming that the Government decides to limit
the number of research departments, there could be two models
for producing the graduates. One would be simply to increase the
intake for the remaining universities. This approach has several
problems. It may not be possible to accommodate the students in
laboratories and classrooms without substantial new build. In
addition, it does not address the problem of regional deserts.
The alternative is to create a new class of physics departments
that do not carry out research competitive in fundamental physics
in the RAE but that can teach physics at the undergraduate level
and contribute to research where appropriate to their mission.
The problem then would be to find a way of sustaining such departments.
One way would be to support their teaching of physics as part
of a larger, multidisciplinary unit and with a research remit
appropriate to that setting. Such a remit could include applications
of physics in support of other subjects and a role in working
with regional or national industry, with the support of the Regional
Development Agencies. In either case, these departments could
offer three-year Bachelors degrees in their own right, while acting
as feeders for the students who wished to complete four-year integrated
Masters degrees (eg MPhys/MSci) at the research departments (but
all of this is dependent on the impact of the Bologna Declaration).
Such students could spend the final two years of their programmes
at the research departments. But, this model (and any other model
that requires teaching-led departments) will have to be adequately
sustained.
Is there a clear intention behind the balance
of post-graduate and under-graduate international students being
sought? Is this an area where the market should be managed? Can
it be managed?
There is no clear intention and, there is probably
no need to manage the market. For many university departments,
it is the income from the high numbers of international students
that helps balance the books. However, the competitiveness of
the UK in attracting international students may be diminished
if we do not ensure that our STEM degrees are consistent with
the European norm that has developed since the Bologna Declaration.
December 2006
102 http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Publications/file
4149.pdf Back
103
http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Projects/Archive/page 6337.html Back
104
http://www.stimulatingphysics.org/ Back
105
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/enterprise and productivity/research
and enterprise/ent res roberts.cfm Back
106
http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Publications/file 6598.pdf Back
107
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2006/06 47/ Back
108
http://www.iop.org/aboutus/The Institute of Physics/Support And
Grants/Undergraduate%20Bursary%20Scheme/page 5602.html Back
109
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget/budget 06/assoc docs/bud
bud06 adscience.cfm Back
110
http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Projects/International Review/index.html Back
111
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn id=2004 0209 Back
112
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/members/ Back
113
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Pubs/hefce/2005/05 24/ Back
114
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/hegateway/uploads/White%20Pape.pdf Back
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