Inside track...

Damned statistics?

The UK could soon be left with just 12 or so statistics departments, with dozens more condemned to serve as mere support staff for other academic fields, it was claimed this week.

Threats to the field could soon reverse recent increases in the employment of statisticians and lead to job culls, according to Fred Smith, a retired professor of mathematics who is conducting a nationwide study of the employment and role of the UK's statisticians.

Early analysis of data gathered for the research project, which was commissioned by the Teaching Statistics Trust, suggests that many staff in statistics departments no longer teach their subject in its own right or do research. Instead, hundreds have been reduced to supporting other departments that need to use computer programs to analyse data.

Professor Smith said: "You have to ask who will develop the necessary statistical methods for the future. It is going to be left to maybe a dozen specialist departments to produce all the new methods and theory, with 40 or 50 others that do not do any development work but are really just a service industry."

A report on the first phase of Professor Smith's research can be found at www.socstats.soton.ac.uk/teachingstats/

 

Leeds scores

Two big hitters have been poached to fill chairs at Leeds University in the coming months as part of a major recruitment drive.

First to arrive will next month be Christopher Clegg, who is leaving his post as professor of organisational psychology at Sheffield University to take up a chair of the same title at Leeds Business School's new Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change.

Professor Clegg is currently deputy director of Sheffield's Institute of Work Psychology, director of the BAE Systems/ Rolls-Royce University Technology Partnership on design and co-director of the Economic and Social Research Council's Centre for Organisation and Development. He is well known for contributions to the understanding of working practices and job design.

Second on the Leeds scorecard is Gary Rawnsley, the director of Nottingham University's Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies. Since August last year, he has been leading curriculum development at Nottingham's high-profile Ningbo campus in China, as well as being acting dean of undergraduate studies and head of international studies.

Professor Rawnsley will become chair of international communications at Leeds from next February.

 

Suffolk plans pack a punch

Jobs with a dockside view are expected to be on offer shortly at University Campus Suffolk, a partnership between the University of East Anglia, Essex University and further education colleges.

UCS, which has unveiled architectural plans for its waterfront Ipswich hub, will announce its academic recruitment plans in October. It opens its doors in September 2007, and Ipswich student numbers are planned to grow from 2,900 to 5,500 by 2012.

Linked campuses and learning centres across the country will raise overall numbers from 3,700 in 2007 to 6,500 in 2012.

Next August, about 350 staff will transfer to UCS from Suffolk College, but UCS aims to fill a number of other posts by next spring, with more concentrated recruitment taking place after that.

UCS is developing a range of undergraduate BA, BSc and foundation degrees, including art and design; construction and engineering; psychology and social studies; and leisure and tourism.

 

Art of talent-spotting

Leicester University's Business School is continuing a recruitment drive that has brought 30 staff to the school in the past three years, with nearly a third at professorial level.

Now up for grabs is a readership and a senior lectureship in finance and accounting.

In the forthcoming research assessment exercise, the school aims to improve on its 3a score in the last RAE - when the research of just ten staff was submitted - and achieve ratings that will place it among the UK's top ten for business and management.

Martin Parker, research director, said that finding the right staff has become difficult as the RAE approaches and competition hots up.

He said: "For many management schools, recruiting good staff is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it, because the market is so buoyant. If a really good candidate came along in a particular area, we would appoint them even if we weren't looking"