{"id":7519,"date":"2021-04-28T09:32:36","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T07:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2021-04-29T08:22:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T06:22:22","slug":"university-of-leicester-wants-to-abolish-pure-math-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/?p=7519","title":{"rendered":"University of Leicester wants to abolish pure math research"},"content":{"rendered":"

To those who are not aware of the fact: The main authors of this randform blog (Tim and Nad) are math Ph.D.’s. Since now quite a while we are very concerned about the fact that (pure) math research is increasingly put under high retrenchment pressure. So for example under the name of “shaping for excellence”, the University of Leicester will decrease its fundamental research capacity. For “pure” math this means: the University VC (=vice chancellor<\/a>) proposes to cease research in pure mathematics and wants again to fire all researchers<\/a>. It is claimed that this is necessary because: “…to ensure a future research identity in AI, computational modelling, digitalisation and data science requires ceasing research in Pure Mathematics in order to invest and extend activities in these areas.”<\/em>
\nFor those who know about the mathematics behind AI, computational modelling and digitalization this sounds not only absurd but rather like to cut one’s nose to spite one’s face. But it seems things are even worse that is this “triage” seems to be a pretense<\/a> as they give no concrete plan “to invest or extend activities” but just to cut in fundamental mathematics research.
\nAs a matter of fact this plan affects a high amount of female researchers<\/a>. In fact by comparing with the list of academic staff (I count 39 academic staff members<\/strong>) and\/or the list of group members in “applied math”<\/a> and\/or the list of women in mathematics on the equal opportunites web page<\/a> it seems all women but 3 <\/strong> of Leicester’s math department are going to be fired<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Moreover University of Leicester management apparently refused to share data on finances with unions.<\/a><\/p>\n

-> Please donate and Help Leicester Pure Maths fund Legal Support<\/a>
\nor at least sign the petition<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To those who are not aware of the fact: The main authors of this randform blog (Tim and Nad) are math Ph.D.’s. Since now quite a while we are very concerned about the fact that (pure) math research is increasingly put under high retrenchment pressure. So for example under the name of “shaping for excellence”, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,8,9,6,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7530,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions\/7530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}