We call on the University of Leicester to urgently reconsider the proposal to dissolve Geography into a new School of Chemical, Earth and Environmental Science. We regard this as a direct attack on the discipline of Geography at Leicester and are particularly concerned at the likely loss of all Human Geography staff through redundancies as well as the unclear futures for Physical Geography and Spatial Data Science. 

Without Geography, the University loses the capacity to link environmental change to the social and spatial systems through which climate impacts are produced, managed and experienced. The proposal dismantles the only discipline that is capable of addressing the intersections between migration, inequality, digital infrastructure, governance, and environmental change. As the Royal Geographical Society argues, geography is ‘unique in bridging the social and natural sciences’. That bridge is under attack at Leicester. Removing geography undermines the very environmental mission Leicester publicly claims to champion. There is significant reputational risk in making this move.

Geography at the University of Leicester has a significant international reputation, producing world-leading externally-funded research and delivering outstanding high quality teaching (as attested to in the NSS 2025 results, where human geography was 1st for overall positivity in the UK). The School has also long been recognised for its GIS teaching and expertise, with a postgraduate programme that was one of the longest-running in the UK. Possibly removing the staff who teach GIS will permanently break this capacity, leaving remote sensing isolated and weakening the University’s ability to train students in this key green skill.

We are also concerned for existing undergraduates, postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers, who face major disruption to their studies and deeply uncertain futures. The foreclosure of degree programmes is a reckless and unprecedented step that will end academic careers, upend personal lives and damage Leicester’s reputation as an institution that offers comprehensive higher education.   

We urge the VC, Provost and Head of College to urgently reconsider this proposal and commit to maintaining geography as a full and integrated discipline at Leicester.

(Please sign with your institution and location possible as we are trying to signal how important Leicester Geography internationally)