I don’t know how cuts for DOE and NSF funding will affect theoretical physics, but there’s news today of a very large gift that will may help make up for such cuts. The Leinweber Foundation announced \$90 million in gifts to finance theoretical physics institutes (and see Forbes article here). Funds will mainly finance postdocs and graduate students, also a conference every two years. The institutions getting this funding are the following:
The MIT CTP, now rebranded the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics – a Leinweber Institute has announced that they will host six new postdocs (two per year, three year positions) and up to six graduate students/year. Starting this fall the director will be Tracy Slatyer.
At Michigan, already back in 2017, the MCTP had received an \$8 million dollar Leinweber gift and was renamed the Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics. Now they be expanding, changing from Center to Institute.
At Berkeley, the news is that the BCTP will be renamed the LITP (Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics), with Yasunori Nomura as director. There will be four new postdocs (currently 15)., as well as support for grad students, visitors, etc.
At Chicago, the current Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics will be merged into a new Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Chicago, announcements here and here. Dam Thanh Son will be the director. As with the other institutes, funding will pay for postdocs, grad students, visitors, etc.
Finally, at the IAS, they are already an Institute, so they had to call it something else, the Leinweber Forum for Theoretical and Quantum Physics. I’m not finding now any more information about this beyond the name.
Update: A story about this by Adrian Cho at Science.
Nice to see some good news for a change. I looked at the Kadanoff center at Chicago and was pleased to see (although I suppose maybe it was to be expected given the name) that research there is not confined to the holy trinity of particle theory, cosmology, and quantum information. They also work on condensed matter theory and some nonequilibrium statistical physics.
I’m curious (and too lazy to go look for myself), how true is that for the other institutes on the list?
AcademicLurker,
It looks like the money goes not to some specific topics, but to expand whatever these places are already doing, which is a range of things. The field these days is not so intensely focused on one bad idea as in the heyday of string theory, but suffers a lot from the lack of good new ideas.
Having a lot more postdocs and phd slots, with money not attached to a specific person and their research program, does mean more opportunities for people starting out who want to try to work on their own new ideas. It does though just make worse the problem of having an academic career. US universities are entering a very uncertain period, one likely with serious budget problems, so cut-backs in faculty hiring. Looking at the latest theoretical particle physics jobs rumor mill page
https://particle.physics.ucdavis.edu/rumor/doku.php
there are 8 people getting tenure track jobs this year. This new funding will fund at least 10 new postdocs/year + lots of graduate students. So in the future there will be a lot more young people competing for the few permanent jobs.
In any case, maybe everyone will move to Europe anyway…
Hello New Friend,
We are happy to fund your peoples physics and social science moral efforts. Would that it were that the skin will not be worn off of your lucrative kneecaps. We do know how sensitive you are to pain.
“In any case, maybe everyone will move to Europe anyway…”
Peter, I was wondering how would it possible for US faculty and postdocs to move to Europe and find jobs when native Europeans already find it hard to get hired, and let alone to get tenure. I don’t think there are more foundations (like the Leinweber Foundation) that contribute to funding research in Europe than in the US.
Also, you yourself said that you were thinking of leaving Columbia after what it went through because of the Trump administration, but do you think it will be easy for you to get a teaching or a research position in Europe? Why don’t you consider Canada or South America or even Asia where research has received a tremendous boost from the governments?
Thomas,
That was a bit of just a bitter joke about the current administration’s plan to destroy US research universities. If people have to leave the US, of course they would face an even more difficult job situation elsewhere. There is a huge expansion going on in China, I already know several US people taking jobs there.
Personally I’m at retirement age, so if I leave the US I would not be looking for a paid position, but for somewhere to retire, and for that purpose Europe is personally the most attractive option.
It’s not as though there are vast numbers of available permanent positions in Europe either. While there have been initiatives to attract displaced US talent, most of these as far as I’m aware are targeted towards subjects which are actively persecuted by the current administration, e.g. gender studies, epidemiology, environmental science. This does not include theoretical physics.
@AcademicLurker,
Most large university theoretical physics centers/institutes/etc. have faculty which cover a broad range of subdisciplines. Some groups may be more prominent than others, but there’s generally representation over a range of subfields. As Peter noted, it’s interesting that this funding is going towards the theory departments generically as a whole, rather than a specific niche of them.
@AcademicLurker, at least at the existing center/institute at Michigan, Leinweber funds three sub-areas: particle phenomenology theory, formal particle theory, and cosmology. Not sure about the other institutes, but it’s probably similar flavor (plus some quantum information type stuff).