Nottingham University jobs threat

Nottingham University wants to cut academic jobs, including many posts in its prestigious physics department. It is facing resistance its workers and wider criticism.

University and College Union members there began action short of strike including a marking and assessment boycott on 20 May, with a one-day strike on 22 May. The university imposed a 100 per cent deduction on those involved in the boycott.

Inflamed

This response significantly inflamed members who have now announced strike days from 1 June to 31 July.

In May it had emerged that the university aimed to cut over 600 academic jobs and close down 42 courses. This raised fears that it could lose its research-intensive status.

This plan includes compulsory redundancies at the university’s prestigious school of physics and astronomy. 56 of 71 staff members in the school have been told they are at risk of redundancy, with 20 roles set to go.

Damage

Six Nobel Prize winners and high-profile BBC science presenters have criticised the employer’s intention. In an open letter, which has attracted more than 2,000 signatures, they call on the university “to reverse its plans to impose compulsory redundancies”. They say that would cause long-lasting damage to the physics department, which ranks among the best in Britain.

‘Cuts to the physics department would be “devastating and foolish”’.

Jim Al-Khalili, BBC presenter and emeritus professor of physics at the University of Surrey, commented, “Nottingham Physics is one of the most respected and prestigious departments in the country and this proposed ‘cull’ would be both devastating and foolish.”

The letter says the threat of compulsory redundancies “has sent shock waves across the international community, causing lasting damage to the reputation” of the institution. If it were to go ahead, “the university will lose its top researchers and struggle to attract the brightest talent in the future”.

Closure risk

It comes as physics and astronomy departments in Britain are already under severe pressure from the proposed £162 million cuts in funding at the Science and Technology Facilities Council. A quarter of these departments are at risk of closure.

The Institute of Physics warns that a crisis in UK physics would harm national security and economic growth, harming vital technologies in defence, AI, quantum computing and the nuclear industry.

Britain is famed for its physics research with 95 per cent of research outputs ranked as internationally excellent.