In an effort to encourage large-scale collaborative projects across different divisions at Imperial, three of them, the Divisions of Biology, Molecular Biosciences and Cellular and Molecular Biology, have been combined into one ‘super department’, the Department of Life Sciences.
Professor Ian Owens, who heads the new department, praises the high quality of research carried out within the divisions and emphasises the great potential for successful joint projects, which have been hindered in the past by the split of money, staff and resources. “There are some large areas of science that don’t fit into just one division and we want to get big funding projects for them,” he says.
The department will also help to alleviate the administrative stresses that the three divisions, which Professor Owens likens to three bickering children, have previously struggled with. “We have fallen into the trap of squabbling over the small things even though we all have similar aims,” he comments.
Owens is also sensitive to the risk of smaller groups losing their identity within such a large department, which includes over 100 independent research groups, many of whom are fiercely independent. He values the cooperative family ethic of these groups, saying “If they end up feeling like worthless cogs in a big department then we’ve really screwed up”.
Senior staff: Colleagues not competitors
Over the years researchers at Imperial have suffered frequent reshuffling, finding themselves under a different identity every few years. The new head is aware that this new move could meet with a jaded response from his colleagues. Dr Pietro Spanu, who leads a research group within the Division of Biology, voices the frustration of many of his contemporaries: “People have been very irritated by one change after another”.
However, he feels that the new department will be a great improvement on the previous situation. He explains that the Divisions were so small that they did not have the clout required to fight for large-scale funding for projects. “This is going to make administration much easier,” he says. “The hope is that they let us get on with that we’re doing. We can work as colleagues rather than as competitors.”
Junior staff: Cosmetic changes
The implications for more junior staff members are less clear. It is seen by some as an administrative shift that has no bearing on their own research. One post-doc, remaining anonymous, argues that “it doesn’t make any difference to the scientists. If I want to collaborate with someone I just get in touch with them.” Some, including a number of group leaders, view it as a purely cosmetic move to give lesser-known research groups more focus. “It makes it more visible to the outside but on the inside it makes no difference,” claims one.
Students: Ho-hum
As for the students, many are unaware that a change has taken place. Undergraduate students are unaffected because the department does not manage teaching schedules, although it is hoped that lecturers will be more readily available now they all fall under the same administration. Meanwhile, post-graduate students take an apathetic outlook, although one says of the reshuffle, “I think its just another bureaucratic rehash – everything is renamed when in reality it’s no better. Nothing changes except the way the budget is controlled.”
For now, each division will continue to run itself as a separate unit and Owens is cautiously optimistic that by listening carefully to the needs of the groups and working on areas that require improvement, the new department will “let the everyday science happen, and act as an umbrella for all the administration that falls around it”.
