The changing face of physics

04 Oct 2018 Matin Durrani

Taken from the October 2018 issue of Physics World, which celebrates 30 years of the world’s best physics magazine. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Julia Higgins, president of the Institute of Physics, talks to Physics World managing editor Matin Durrani about her career and how life for physicists has changed since the magazine was founded 30 years ago

Leading the way: Julia Higgins has been ever-present in UK physics over the last three decades. (Courtesy: Imperial College London)

Let’s rewind the clock to 1988. What were you doing back then?

I was a reader here in the chemical-engineering department at Imperial College in London. I was running a group, doing research on polymers using neutron scattering. I was just beginning to focus on polymer mixtures and blends, which became a main theme of my work. But I was also starting to do things with the research councils, for example serving on research-council committees.

What were your main scientific interests?

I was looking at the thermodynamics of polymer mixtures and seeing what happens if you add shear flow – in essence if you stretch or stir the system. When polymer materials are processed, they’re subject to quite strong rheological forces. People were beginning to suggest that viscoelastic effects would affect the miscibility so they might or might not stay mixed when processed. I was just starting to set up research in that area, which became quite fruitful in the 1990s and beyond.

What were your main professional concerns at the time?

Getting enough funding. There was a period in the mid-1980s when I had no research grants. I kept getting responses from the Science and Engineering Research Council saying [my proposals are] alpha quality but just below the cut-off. I had five or six research students funded by various mechanisms but no postdocs. And that’s quite difficult, to run a group with no postdocs. You need some senior people. Fortunately, my career was still advancing and I became a professor the following year.

What have been the highlights of your research over the last 30 years?

People studying polymer mixtures and blends wanted to see individual molecules, but to distinguish one molecule from all the others near it you need a labelling technique. Neutron scattering offered that, because the neutron is scattered differently by a deuterium atom than by a hydrogen atom. And it’s not difficult, chemically, to make polymer molecules where all the hydrogen has been replaced by deuterium. So thanks to neutrons, we were able to look at the shape of the molecule, at what happens when you stretch them, and what happens when they phase separate.

What would you say were the biggest breakthroughs overall in physics in the last 30 years?

The trouble is you tend to think of big physics, don’t you? So things like the Higgs boson and gravitational waves. A lot of interesting stuff has also been done using space missions. But that isn’t all of physics. It’s the glamorous bit, but there’s a lot of very exciting physics going on at smaller scales that doesn’t require great big pieces of apparatus.

How has that kind of smaller science changed?

In my own field, three things have happened. One is that chemical synthesis has become more sophisticated. People can now make the polymers that I need, with the right size, with the right nuclei in them. So we now have much better controlled materials. Second, the modelling of materials has improved hugely. And third, there have been advances in techniques like synchrotrons, spallation neutron sources and nuclear-magnetic resonance. People used to say physicists do beautiful experiments on rubbish samples, while chemists make beautiful samples, but don’t do very good experiments. That’s all changed.

Would you say life has become easier or harder for researchers in the last three decades?

My observation is that life’s got harder for young academics, who have so many pressures on their time. For a lecturer starting out [in the UK], getting funding is more difficult, especially if you’re in a university further down the pecking order. And the Research Evaluation Framework means there’s more pressure from your university to go and get that funding. Teaching also takes more time because it’s got to be so accountable. The psychological pressure on young staff is definitely worse.

Life’s got harder for young academics, who have so many pressures on their timeJulia Higgins

What about physics students: are they more demanding than they used to be?

They expect a lot more. They want detailed lecture notes given to them. We tended to lecture, and expect the students to take notes. Now they want more contact time and fast feedback on their work. They also expect us to provide model answers to past exam questions, as well as to problem sheets.

How else has physics education in the UK changed over the last 30 years?

I remember an article back then saying that even if we recruited every student studying physics in a UK university into teaching, we still wouldn’t fill the gap in teacher numbers. I’m not sure that much has changed since then – we have some terrific teachers, but there just aren’t enough of them. And that in turn is because the number of students doing physics is still too low – and the number of girls is dreadfully low. The Institute of Physics (IOP) has been doing a lot of work looking at gender prejudices about subject choices, which shows there is a culture of unconscious bias in our schools that’s much stronger than in the rest of the world.

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do to get more people studying physics?

I’d introduce a Baccalaureate system [where students study a range of subjects] rather than forcing pupils to do three A-levels. Reducing pupils’ choices to just three subjects puts us on a hiding to nothing as too many people drop out of physics. I’d love to create loads of physics teachers, but no-one can produce them in the short term. That would make a big difference. More generally, I’d change the pressure we have to finish education at the age of 21 or 22. If everyone is going to be working until they’re 90, why couldn’t we extend the period of education so that people don’t just do a broader mix of subjects in school, but at university too?

There have been huge advances in communication technology over the last 30 years – have they helped or hindered researchers?

I remember in 1987 I went on a sabbatical in Germany and the visit all had to be set up using the postal system. We didn’t have e-mail, and faxes were only just coming in. Now if you want to organize a round trip to Germany, you just lob off e-mails to all the people you want to see. Back then we were also only just beginning to get diagrams drawn on computer. Now if you look at posters on the wall in any laboratory they’re beautiful. We had to make posters using Letraset. Seriously. I was still doing most of my talks using foils and an overhead projector. Online publishing has changed things too. Instant access to journals and back catalogues has made a big difference – we don’t have to go traipsing off to the library and clambering round the stacks. It’s just so easy.

So we can communicate and work faster – but has that raised the quality of research?

Students these days do quite sophisticated model fitting to their data without blinking. When I first did neutron scattering, I had data on magnetic tape or cards. And to analyse it, we had to write our own programs. Now I’m not advocating we go back to the past, but the fact that data are plotted automatically can mislead about the quality of the answer you’re getting. So there are different traps for students now than we had back then.Nurturing talent: Julia Higgins is a strong supporter of female scientists, with her eponymous award – given last year to physicist Jess Wade – honouring those who have helped women at Imperial College, London. (Courtesy: Imperial College London/Fergus Burnett)

You’re the first woman to be a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Are you content with the progress women in physics have made over the last 30 years?

Oh, no. Things have improved but not nearly enough. When I became a professor the year after [Physics World started] I doubled the number of female professors in the whole of Imperial. Two of us were in this department and nobody anywhere else. The proportion of female professors [at Imperial] is now about 20%, partly because we have now got a medical school and there are more women in that field. It’s undoubtedly much better than it was, but it’s still not equal numbers.

Have you seen a change in the way colleagues talk about diversity?

In the late 1990s I was involved in setting up the Athena project and the first diversity committee [at Imperial]. It was focused specifically on female academics, because there were so few of them and we weren’t changing the numbers. Now, Imperial has a very strong diversity and equality committee, directly under the provost. It has all sorts of events year on year, celebrating the women’s academic achievements There are even a few portraits of women to dilute the heavy male presence on the walls.

Do you think quotas can help more women into senior roles?

I’m not a fan of quotas because I don’t know any woman, including myself, who would like to have been picked because they were a woman. Quotas don’t solve the problem. However, I am in favour of positive action. In some departments, when your shortlist doesn’t have any women on it, you have to go back, re-look at the applications, and get some women on the shortlist. So you can do positive intervention. You can go out and find the women and say, come and apply. We will look after you, even though you don’t promise them the job.

There have been a few high-profile cases of sexual misconduct involving various physicists in research years. What’s your reaction to them?

It’s appalling. Any relationship where you have a mismatch in power is dangerous. So if you have a man running a group and a woman who is the research student or the assistant, that produces the possibility of harassment or misbehaviour. I think it’s always been going on but people now feel more empowered to speak about it. It’s the misuse of power that’s really at the root of the problem. It doesn’t happen between equals in the same way – at least, that’s my observation. Institutions need mechanisms in place for dealing with it, such as the IOP Juno scheme.

Have you suffered any sexism?

Oh, yeah. Let me give you two examples. I was once on a big Royal Society committee and the chairman was late arriving, so somebody else took his place. I happened to be sitting next to the replacement chairman when the real chairman came in. He sat down beside me, looked at me and said: “Could you get me a cup of coffee?” Well, I thought, he’s got to chair the meeting so I went and got him a coffee. A little bit later in the meeting, he turned to me and asked: “And can you tell me the arrangements for lunch?” The people in the meeting saw my face and told me afterwards I looked like thunder. But you know? I just said “No” and then explained who he should ask. And I think he was more embarrassed than I was. So that was one example.

And what was the other instance?

About 10 years ago I was chairing one of the Research Assessment Exercise’s “super panels”, which brought together several subject panels, so the participants didn’t really know each other. Somebody came up to me and said: “Very nice to meet you. Are you the nice lady who arranged my travel?” Now, I was standing with two other female fellows of the Royal Society and we just laughed at him. To make that sort of mistake is just crass. Well, I can laugh as I’m in a position of power now, but would it have worried me at the start of my career if I’d been assumed to be the secretary? Actually, I don’t think so because back then it was so unusual to have a woman that people tended to know who I was.

What’s the best way of dealing with the gender bias in physics?

I think we have to be careful to maintain sanity and some sense of humour. My personal observation is, most of the time when people make these mistakes, once it’s drawn to their attention, they’re more embarrassed than anything. But there’s still a lot of education to do.

Do you think women can do more to support each other?

The problem is women often don’t put themselves forward for top positions. Women sort of think well, I’m not quite up for it. So they’re probably not asking their colleagues, would you support me for whatever it is. I don’t think there’s an obvious prejudice, but I think there’s a lack of numbers. If you look at nominations for fellowship of the Royal Society, we do work proactively to make sure women get nominated.

What about collaboration with industry. Has that improved over the last 30 years?

No. I think things have got worse, at least in the industries I deal with. You can still have very good collaboration with businesses, but when I started out, the firms I was involved with still had some very good scientists on their own staff in the sort of bridging role, into the universities. Relationships were easy to foster. Fewer companies these days have a research department. Building bridges is hard because the contact people aren’t there and so universities are having to move more towards industry to try and bridge the gap.

Coming back to your career, what of your many roles have you enjoyed the most?

Definitely as foreign secretary of the Royal Society. I was travelling the world and deeply involved with the science community. It was exciting and hugely enjoyable. In terms of making the most difference, it would have to be my role setting up and then chairing the Athena project. Actually, now being IOP president is pretty good fun. I’m enjoying that, too.

Do you still see a role for member societies like the IOP?

Yes, I do. Scientists need to communicate what science is all about to the rest of the community, because those of us who understand science are a minority. Learned societies have a very important role to play in that by supporting their members to meet each other, to keep their enthusiasm going, and transmitting that enthusiasm. Because frankly, in terms of being a good citizen, knowing something about science is important for everyone as so much of what’s going on in society depends on science. And with our new building [at King’s Cross, London] and all the facilities it’s going to have, the IOP is going to do a great job.

There’s never been a female president of the Royal Society. Would you fancy it?

I’m too old now. That’s a really big job to do.

If you were a student today, would you still do physics?

Yes. I loved the subject. I had a great physics teacher. She’s now 92 – a terrific person. The moment I started learning physics, I thought that was the only subject I was ever going to do at university. So yes, I would definitely study physics again.

Julia Higgins: why Brexit is “disastrous”

(Courtesy: iStock/egal)

A lot of your career has involved working with researchers from other nations. What do you think about the UK leaving the European Union (EU)?

It’s disastrous. Of course, there was a lot of international co-operation before the UK joined the EU. In fact, CERN was never anything to do with the EU. Nor was the Institut Laue-Langevin. But the EU’s Marie Curie fellowships for postdocs have changed mobility within Europe hugely. We’d always accepted young scientists from the rest of Europe to do research here, but suddenly there was funding to bring them with their own grants. There’s also research money for individuals from the European Research Council (ERC).

How will Brexit affect UK research?

We will lose a lot that we gained, which is a pity. Even though some of these big shared facilities aren’t EU facilities, a lot of the collaborations that work there are funded under various EU schemes. There will also be a lot lost in terms of mobility around Europe. It’s now so easy to employ PhD students, postdocs and young staff from other countries in Europe. You don’t need work permits. You just bring them in. Getting work permits used to be a nuisance. It took effort – and you didn’t always get them easily.

Have you seen any effects already at Imperial since the Brexit referendum?

I personally haven’t. In fact, I am involved in setting up collaboration between a young colleague here and somebody from the Netherlands. But anecdotally, people are saying they’re worried. A lot of non-UK European colleagues at Imperial have become very uncomfortable about their position in the country.

Do you see any negatives in the fact that about a quarter of all faculty in UK physics departments are now EU nationals?

I think it’s great. I can’t see anything bad about that at all. It’s a net gain to this country. The US has for years welcomed scientists from all around the world and kept the best. And it hasn’t done the US any harm in terms of its research capabilities.

Could there be any upsides to Brexit?

It will depend on how the government responds. In a sense, we haven’t had to bother about funding international collaboration in the European context because it’s been dealt with through the ERC and the Framework [business-focused] programmes. If we were to put more money into really good collaborations with China or North America, for example, we might see some interesting things emerge. At the moment, there’s relatively little money available from the research councils for running collaborative projects between the UK and the US.

8/10/2018 FROM PHYSICSWORLD.COM