Announcing the 2020 Yearbook

Twelve months ago, as the Leicester Physics News Team were pulling together stories for our first-ever Yearbook 2019, we could never have imagined the strange world we find ourselves in at the end of 2020. 

After a mere ten weeks of normality, life began to change immeasurably for the entire Physics and Astronomy family.   Some of us have not seen the department in more than nine months, some have been taking part in face-to-face teaching and lab-based research, and some have wandered the socially-distanced corridors with a heavy heart, missing the noise, chaos, and energy of previous years.  Many living within the city boundaries have been under some sort of restrictions ever since.  Each of us has had to adapt, to try to find our own paths through the COVID-19 pandemic, and to hold onto the certainty that better times are in front of us.

But despite the Earth-shattering events of the past year, compiling this Yearbook 2020 has been remarkable, eye-opening, and inspiring.  We hope that you’ll be proud of the flexibility and resilience shown in the Physics and Astronomy community – the pages are overflowing with School events; stories of successes in our student, research, and academic communities; highlights from our public engagement across the UK; momentous changes in our teaching through the Ignite programme; and new leaps forward for our world-leading research.  Our Directors of Teaching have done a phenomenal job, working non-stop to support teaching staff who have worked tirelessly to prepare blended courses suitable for the virtual world.  They have been supported by the superhuman efforts of our administrative team and lab teams.  Our undergraduate and postgraduate admissions teams have achieved outstanding results, with an excellent number of new students joining our School this academic year.  All have had to adapt to the ever-changing requirements of university life with COVID-19.  These stories showcase the energy and enthusiasm of our School during 2020, and show what we can achieve even under the most challenging of circumstances.

Leicester Research

2020 marked six decades of space research here at Leicester, and the exploration of our Earth, our Solar System, and our place in the Universe remains at the core of Leicester’s research.  Our research grant income for 2019/20 was nothing short of outstanding, supporting world-leading science across our School.   Space Park Leicester continues to develop in leaps and bounds on Pioneer Park, promising exciting new possibilities for research; novel approaches to education and skills training; and wonderful opportunities for engagement and impact in the coming decade.   Occupation of these new buildings is expected to commence in the middle of next year – you can read the ‘inside story’ of the development of Space Park in this Yearbook. 

Our research structure has been consolidated throughout 2020, with the formation of the new Astrophysics group (merging our X-ray astronomy and theoretical astrophysics groups) and Planetary Science group (combining elements of Radio and Space Plasma physics and the Space Research Centre), to sit alongside the Earth Observation Science group and the cross-cutting Space Research Centre.   These structural changes, alongside the curriculum transformation of our undergraduate course that was completed last year, means that the School is well prepared for its seventh decade.  You can learn more about the exciting research from 2020 in the pages of this Yearbook.

Physics Community

Through all the challenges of 2020, the Physics and Astronomy community has been more important than ever before, trying to keep us talking to one another despite our isolation. We’ve welcomed new students to the University under the strangest of conditions, and sadly said goodbye to our leavers in a way none of us could have foreseen.  The newly formed Physics Community team, which emerged out of a virtual summer engagement programme, has been trying to draw together the various opportunities available across the School.  The centrepiece is our redesigned blog, used to coordinate virtual events (such as our recent all-school quiz and National Space Centre Q&A sessions); showcase Leicester teaching and research achievements (videos, podcasts, blogs); advertise opportunities (such as social events, student societies, seminars, and extra-curricular activities); and introduce key members of our School to the wider community (our “Conversations with…” profiles).  Our undergraduates and graduates have dragged the rest of us into the 21^st century, via the management of Discord servers for informal chats, study groups, film nights, social gaming, and much more.  Highlights from the blog form the backbone of this Yearbook, but there’s plenty more to discover in these pages, showcasing the breadth of what we’ve managed to accomplish in this strange year.

To those who have been leading us through these tumultuous times – from the management team, to the administrative team, to the teaching directors, to the admissions team, and to all those who had to react to the sudden changes imposed on us – the School would like to say an enormous and heartfelt thank you.  2021 marks the centenary for the University of Leicester, and we can’t help but wonder what those first students and researchers of 1921 would make of our School today.  We hope they’d be proud that we’d managed to weather the storms of 2020, setting the foundations for a prosperous centenary year.  Finally, the chief editor would like to extend thanks to the Leicester Physics News Team, Physics Community team, and all the contributors to the School blog, without whom this Yearbook 2020 would never have become reality. Particular thanks go to Emily Baldwin and Harneet Sangha for assembling the Yearbook.