Staff, students and a Nobel Prize winner are stepping up their campaign against plans to close th... AUT: Sussex University sta

Staff, students and a Nobel Prize winner are stepping up their campaign against plans to close the University of Sussex’s highly respected chemistry department. Today (Friday) students and staff, decked in lab coats, are holding a mass lobby of the university senate at 2.00pm.

The university is blaming financial pressures for the cuts, but their decision has caused outrage amongst current staff and students as well as some of the institution’s glittering alumni. The chemistry department has two Nobel laureates, but the decision to downsize has infuriated the 1996 Nobel Prize winner and recipient of a Sussex University honorary degree, Sir Harry Kroto.

Sir Harry Kroto has said he is considering returning his honorary degree to the university if plans to axe the department are not shelved immediately.

Evidence will be heard from Professor Alasdair Smith, Vice Chancellor, University of Sussex; Dr Gerry Lawless, Head of Chemistry Department; and Mr Steve Egan, Acting Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding Council for England. The evidence session will take place at 5.15pm on Monday 27 March in Committee Room 8 of the House of Commons.

A chemistry cull across the UK has left Britain without many high-ranking departments in the last few years. Exeter, King’s College London, Queen Mary’s London and Dundee have all dropped the subject recently. Although universities see axing the subject as a short-term financial fix, experts in the field have expressed their grave concerns about the UK’s ability to be a global leader in science if this trend is not reversed.

Sussex University saw applications for undergraduate chemistry rise by 40 per cent this year, with 350 applications for 25 places. Further protests are planned by staff and students at Sussex if the university persists with the plans to axe the chemistry department.

The job losses in chemistry are part of a wider program of cuts at Sussex University, which include a threat to posts in continuing education and at least 45 losses across campus. University management proposes to re-fill many of the posts in the run up to the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008. The plans include the threat of compulsory redundancies if staff do not take voluntary terms. These latest threats are the third round of their kind in just five years.

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