Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) entomology, (2) soil science, and (3) microbial science professors, there are at English universities.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes statistics on staff at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Latest statistics refer to the academic year 2017/18.

Each staff member can be recorded as teaching and/or researching up to 3 academic disciplines[1]. Counts of the number of academic staff and professors involved in the most closely related academic disciplines to those requested have been provided in the table:

Full-person-equivalent[2] academic staff by current academic discipline at English HEIs for

Academic Year 2017/18

Source: Department for Education analysis of the HESA Staff Record

Notes:

Figures are rounded to the nearest 5 in line with HESA’s rounding strategy.

Staff can be recorded across more than one academic discipline, so rows in the table ought not to be summed together.

‘Professor’ indicates a member of staff holding a contract which aligns with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association contract level 5A 'Professor'. This may undercount professors because many will fall into more senior levels, e.g. Heads of department.

[1] Academic disciplines are categorised using the Joint Academic Coding System: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c17025/a/curaccdis.

[2] The definition for full-person-equivalent is available from the HESA website:

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c17025/fte_vs_fpe.