Science job losses ‘at odds with Labour’s industrial strategy’

Proposed staff cuts at some of the UK’s leading science departments should prompt ministers to reconsider whether the future of subjects key to industrial strategy ambitions are left to the markets, experts have said.

With the universities of Sheffield and Nottingham recently announcing staff cuts in their acclaimed chemistry departments – both ranked in the UK’s top 20 in the last Research Excellence Framework – concerns have been raised about how this could affect the skills pipeline to industries such as clean energy and life sciences which, in September 2025, were earmarked as high-growth priority areas by Labour.

There are also plans to cut about a third of staff in Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy, while Sheffield’s materials science and engineering department is slated to axe about one in five posts.

With research-intensive Russell Group universities seeking cuts in departments relevant to growth sectors, ministers should reflect on how these changes might affect their policy agenda, in particular, Keir Starmer’s flagship “Plan for Change”, launched in December 2024, said Graeme Reid, chair of science and research policy at UCL.

“The growth mission is the most senior mission of this government and, in the very first sentence of that Plan for Change, the UK’s ‘world-class universities and researchers and world-class talent’ are mentioned as the ‘fundamentals’ of the UK economy,” said Reid, a former senior civil servant in the Department for Business and the Treasury.

“Any changes should be moving us closer to the vision and intentions set out in that document – not further away – and it’s not obvious how any recent changes help secure those ‘fundamentals’,” said Reid.

Although Reid stressed he was “not suggesting all change is bad” and that the “size and shape of the research landscape was undergoing continual evolution”, ministers should consider whether the research sector was moving in the right direction and whether they could do more to push it towards its desired outcomes.

That could include greater support for the teaching of strategically important subjects in the same way that UK Research and Innovation had signalled more support for research in areas explicitly aligned to government priorities, he said.

“This is a government that does not feel confident leaving the price of groceries to the market but it seems very comfortable in leaving the central feature of its growth agenda to these forces,” said Reid, adding: “It’s not clear why you can regulate the price of groceries but not the health of the research and innovation system.”

While the principle of research competition based on excellence should be maintained, many of the difficult decisions faced by universities, including Sheffield and Nottingham, are not related to a decline in research performance but recent decisions to restrict student visa rules that led to a sharp loss of institutional income, said Reid.

“We have a highly competitive research system but it is being influenced by immigration policy and higher employment costs – factors injected sideways into the research system which has led to outcomes unrelated to research performance,” explained Reid.

“High performance should create a virtuous circle that allows you the chance to recruit top students from across the world, gain financially and win more research grants but that circle has been disrupted by immigration decisions [taken by ministers],” he said.

With several UK universities closing chemistry departments and courses, the proposed cuts at Sheffield and Nottingham were “particularly concerning”, agreed Helen Pain, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). She said the cuts would “significantly reduce chemistry staff who play an important role across groundbreaking research and in teaching, to ensure a pipeline of talent continues to provide that skilled workforce”.

“Both of these roles contribute directly to local and regional economies and international collaborations,” Pain added.

Last year the RSC warned about a growing number of chemistry “cold spots”, where it was impossible to study the subject in parts of the UK, such as Yorkshire, where the University of Hull closed its chemistry department and the University of Bradford ended new chemistry enrolments in 2025. Cuts to chemistry departments have also been announced at Aston and Cardiff universities and the University of East Anglia in recent years.

Describing chemistry as a “growth area for jobs, essential for economic and societal goals and the UK’s industrial strategy”, Pain said university departments are “central to the innovation ecosystem and provide a crucial training pathway for a diverse future chemistry workforce and the vast range of careers they can follow”.

“So, while we understand the financial pressures in UK universities and the need for change we are extremely concerned that big cuts to chemistry departments risk damaging long-term scientific capability and resilience,” she said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com