Keele UniversityFaculty of Natural Sciences
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School of Physical & Geographical Sciences
School of Physical and Geographical Sciences
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About the School
The School of Physical and Geographical Sciences consists of some 50 Academic Staff and 25 Technical and Administrative Staff and provides an excellent environment for inter-disciplinary teaching and research.
We pride ourselves on the approachability of our staff and have a strong commitment to providing high quality educational programmes, with a nationally leading reputation for innovation in teaching, recognised by many awards to staff.
We have an excellent research infrastructure, with many staff pursuing internationally recognised research and are also very active in delivering the University’s Widening Participation strategy.
Many of our staff have an outstanding reputation for promoting science to the public and Science Outreach activities, supported by substantial external grants.
The School offers a wide choice of highly successful undergraduate degree courses in Applied Environmental Science, Environment and Sustainability, Forensic Science, Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Geography, Human Geography, Physical Geography, Geology, Geoscience, Physics and Astrophysics. These programmes are available as Dual Honours, Major-minor, Single Honours and Undergraduate Masters degree routes in order to provide students with flexibility and choice. In addition, all of these programmes are underpinned by our strong commitment to dynamic and supportive high-quality teaching, which is measureable by the excellent performance of the School’s degree courses in the National Student Survey.
The School is divided across two buildings, Lennard-Jones (Chemistry, Forensic Science and Physics/Astrophysics) and William Smith (Geography, Geology/Geoscience and the Environment). These buildings contain well-equipped laboratories and teaching rooms to cater for the delivery of teaching on the School’s programmes. In addition, they allow students to identify with a specific ‘home’ within the University.
The School has benefited recently from over £7M of investment in major laboratory refurbishments creating new analytical, chemical, forensic, physics, environmental and geology/geoscience laboratories for teaching and research. In particular, the Multi-User Laboratory is a joint £4 million venture between the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Health and has resulted in three large, exceptionally well equipped laboratories for the delivery of chemistry, forensic science, pharmacy and environmental science courses. The development of this new laboratory has provided greater opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience with a wide range of analytical equipment. It also represents one of the best science teaching facilities in the country.
Research within the School covers a huge breadth, including social, cultural and physical geography, geology, geochemistry, applied and environmental geophysics, clean and environmental technology, environmental chemistry and waste utilisation, catalysis, materials chemistry, analytical and forensic science, photochemistry, chemical ecology and astrophysics.
We are one of the leading earners of research income within the University, with significant funding from UK government, the European Union and from industry, and are also a leading contributor to the University’s rapidly expanding enterprise and knowledge transfer agenda.
Stuart Egan, Head of School
