Hundreds of science PhDs face axe as doctoral centres shuttered

None of this impacts the talent pipeline issue in the UK since a PhD is not seen as an attractive option by many home students. I work in a Russell Group university and in my 30-year academic career, have only supervised a few home students in the 40 or so where I have been the first or second supervisor. An academic career is not appealing and I can see why - I am not sure whether I would be able to pursue one if I was younger. In my subject (Electronic Engineering), this is a long-standing problem only made worse by the increasing bureaucracy in universities, the real-terms decrease in pay and the less-attractive pension scheme. It would be better to have fewer students with better funding for each since at present it is hard to attract the top ones!