Meeting our STEM needs goes beyond supply and demand

Closing science departments when student demand falls is much easier than reopening them when it rises. We need a national strategy to ensure that the economy gets the graduates it needs, argues Averil McDonald.

Imagine giving 16-year-olds responsibility for determining the research structure of a country and deciding which subject areas should retain or increase research capacity and which should be cut or closed. They would be unaware of the long-term consequences of their choices and the impacts on the country’s economic growth, and feel completely unconstrained in deciding which research areas to support and which to endanger.

Add to this the incentive for these 16-year-olds that, regardless of their choices, jobs and careers will be almost guaranteed in the areas they support. Soon, the research structure of the country would reflect what is attractive to 16-year-olds. Unfashionable departments would close, regardless of the importance of their research. And across the country, glamorous degree subjects would multiply.