CaMS spokesperson Professor Marcus du Sautoy has discussed the closure of university maths departments and funding for a new National Academy for Mathematical Sciences in a recent interview for the New Statesman.
Interviewed in advance of a new play he has written and co-directed, Du Sautoy raised the prospect of cuts to maths having outsized effects on the economy at large, with the mathematical sciences estimated to have contributed nearly half a trillion pounds to the UK's economic output last year.
With planned cuts to the National Academy for Mathematical Sciences, Du Sautoy has argued that the country risks not having "the tools to be able to make the next big fundamental step" in sectors such as AI, data science and a whole range of other technologies.
This he argues, coupled with the ongoing threat of department closures and fewer maths courses and their knock-on effects on secondary school maths teaching, should be of great concern at a time when numeric skills are needed more than ever.
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