Strategic university courses at risk if funding not maintained, warns report

According to an evaluation report from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) support for strategically important and vulnerable subjects (SIVS), including chemistry, physics, engineering, maths, modern languages and social sciences has enabled courses in these areas to be sustained.
 
The report warns that without HEFCE-funded SIVS interventions, it is unlikely that provision would have been sustained to the same extent. Looking to the future, HEFCE chief executive, Sir Alan Langlands, said 'difficult choices now have to be made' and warned of 'significant reductions to grant and greater volatility in the new fees and funding regime'.
 
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Any extra money is to be welcomed. However, we have real concerns that without it these strategically important subjects would have struggled. This report raises serious issues about how these courses and others without access to extra funds in the future will survive.
 
'2012 will see us move to a radical new system of university funding that is untried and at present is in a complete mess. Funding for teaching most arts and humanities subjects is being removed completely, a decision which could add many more to the list of vulnerable subjects. The government needs to think again about the damage done to our universities if it pushes ahead with such radical cuts.'