Anger as top college drops chemistry

The following apology was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday March 19 2006

We repeated a news agency error in the article below when we incorrectly listed the University of Surrey among those institutions which have dropped undergraduate chemistry. The university has actually invested more than £5m in the subject over the past three years. Apologies.




Science education in Britain was dealt a fresh blow yesterday with news that one of the most prestigious centres in the country is set to close.

Scientists reacted angrily to the announcement by Sussex University to shut down its high-ranking chemistry department, which has produced three Nobel Laureates. The university plans to concentrate on other areas, including English, history, media and maths.

It is the latest in a long list of closures indicative of the weakening state of chemistry education in UK universities. Exeter, King's College London, Queen Mary's London, Dundee and Surrey have also dropped the subject in recent years. Financial pressures and the shift of popularity towards less traditional subjects such as media studies have been blamed.

But the move has angered one academic described by Sussex as a 'local celebrity'. Sir Harry Kroto, one of the Nobel Prize winners, said the decision would plunge the university's status from 'premiership to third division'. Kroto, who was 'close to tears' at the news, said he would send back his honorary degree and insist the university take his name off its 'propaganda'. 'They always trumpet the fact that they have Nobel laureates,' he said. 'I hope they realise they will no longer be able to do that. Sussex is in the top 150 universities in the world but that is because of its science, not its arts. If this happens it will plunge below 300.'

Kroto said he would fight to block the move and help the 'excellent young chemists' studying there. In 2004 former Sussex biochemistry undergraduate Martina Rieder was named the UK's most enterprising student for her work on products to help patients who have undergone bowel surgery.

Kroto said the country desperately needed people to be properly trained in physical sciences who could 'deal with problems of survival.' Instead there was a continuous shift away from the traditional subjects.

Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, agreed. 'No university can claim to be a real university without a chemistry department,' he said. 'It is a central science.'

But more and more universities are taking the decision to cut the traditional sciences because of economic pressures. Derek Bell, the chief executive of the Association for Science Education, said: 'There is a strategic decision to look at things that are more expensive and perhaps attract less numbers of pupils. To a certain extent chemistry may fall into that category.'

In a statement to staff, the vice-chancellor at Sussex university admitted that chemistry was a 'difficult recruitment area.' Professor Alasdair Smith said: 'Overall, retaining a chemistry department in its present form, operating across the full discipline, would cost us an extra £750,000 with no guarantee of long-term success in recruitment or research.'

But Kroto and others said Sussex had no problem recruiting students to the subject. The head of the chemistry department insisted applications remained strong. 'This proposal is ludicrous,' said Dr Gerry Lawless. 'The department is going to be suffocated.' Lawless said applications for undergraduate chemistry were up 40 per cent on last year, with 350 applicants chasing around 25 places. 'We were attracting top quality applicants,' he said. 'Now they will not want to come. We won't be able to keep the staff because when other jobs become available they will leave.'