Complexity Digest 2005.06 - 08

07-Feb-2005

'Darwinian' Funding and the Demise of Physics and Chemistry, Science Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: Demand for physics and chemistry classes has been steadily falling as students are lured into more career-specific courses such as sports science, forensic science, and media studies. And the once cozy world of British academia is now a competitive marketplace in which universities must vie with each other for government research money and attract as many students as possible to maintain their income. Some researchers suspect that current funding policies are designed to weed out the weak and concentrate resources in a smaller number of superdepartments. "It's a Darwinian exercise," (...).