Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine is closing down
Today’s sad news for 
The decision probably doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us who have followed the policy of the Wellcome Trust closely during the last couple of years. Nevertheless it is sad news. The Centre — which was established in 1999 when the Academic Unit of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine was taken over by UCL — is probably best known among the general educated public in the English-speaking world as the institution where the late Roy Porter worked.
For specialists in the history of medicine it has been a site for scholarly pilgrimage. Not just because of Roy Porter, Bill Bynum, Vivian Nutton, Janet Browne and other excellent scholars who worked full-time there, but also because of hundreds of phd students, postdocs and senior guest researchers from all over the world who spent longer and shorter times at the Academic Unit/Centre. And not least because of the proximity to the library of the history of medicine — the best of its kind in the world.
The decision seems to have come as a surprise to the Centre. As late as a month ago the website was revamped, and last week they launched a blog for the Friends of the Centre.
The Centre is starting the wind-down period with a three day international conference on the ‘Future of Medical History’ to be held 15-17 July 2010.
15 Apr 2010 Thomas
I have visited the centre. I am surprised it is being closed, Where will all the exhibits and the staff be rehoused? The is very bad news for me. Can anything be done to reverse this?
The Wellcome Collection is owned by the Wellcome Trust and will most probably not be affected, so the exhibitions are not in danger. The Centre is part of UCL and financed by WT. I don’t think anything can be done. And maybe it’s not such a bad thing — all academic institutiion have their heroic years, their climax and their downfall.
You are very vague about the reasons for the closure. Please specify
Professor Soderqvist,
Thanks for posting this. I am obviously completely ignorant of any of the context, and was therefore stunned to learn of this (in fact, I thought for a moment it had to be a belated April Fools Day prank).
Nevertheless, I am curious as to why this decision is not entirely surprising to persons with a better sense of the situation over there.
Still, it feels like a great loss.
There was some controversy regarding monies etc. which didn’t help matters. But overall the Wellcome Trust is phasing out Centres and Units in the United Kingdom, and doing away with strategic and enhancement awards, to be replaced by University Awards and Programme Grants. They will no longer pick up the admin costs, and expect the University to pay for that, i.e. secretaries, administrators, building maintenace etc… Similar circumstances are transpiring throughout the UK at smaller Units and Centres. This is not bad thing, as it makes more money available for us, the researchers. Those lucky enough, or already on the University payroll, will be simply absorbed, if they weren’t already, into history departments where the Units and Centres are located.
It should be added, that for those visiting the Wellcome Trust Library, where the Centre was located above, it will pretty much be the same, unless your close friends with the academic staff…then, in a couple years, you might have to trek down the road to UCL’s history dept. All the same archival staff etc. will be there, and they should have plenty of funding to come to the Library, and the usual plethora of events going on related to the history of medicine. Again, the trust just doesn’t feel it should be responsible for the duties that Universities typically carry out. So really the only people that are going to be affected are grad students studying there, b/c they will no longer have luxurious surroundings and will have to slog it out with the rest of UCL’s history grad students; and the academic and research staff who aren’t lucky enough to be picked up by UCL full time. The REF (used to be the RAE) is in 2012, and all Universities are making sure that the staff they have on can contribute the most to it (i.e. peer reviewed articles and monographs) so some might bite the dust…but, again, for the rest of you who sojourn there every once in a while, if you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t think anything had changed.
If this is true, and the only confirmation of it is a single report on the web-site about a forthcoming conference, the reasons are probably manifold, including (1) problems at UCL due to the funding squeeze, and (2) the Wellcome has always been a bit ambivalent about its HOM programme, and recently appears to have wanted to shift its attention to public understanding of science programmes. As a past member of unit that was eradicated, I’m well aware that these actions are a possibility, and that there might have been other political and personal considerations at play.
The Wellcome will continue to support its collections and its excellent library. What should be paid attention to is its other areas of operation in the HOM. Will it continue to support the journal? Will it continue to fund lectureships? Or will it withdraw completely from the HOM.
Still haven’t given up on the possiblity that this a rogue hack on the web-site, but if I’m right about the other things I’ve said, this is unlikely.
Colleagues interested in the interpretation of objects may be interested to see the Science Museum’s now-finished website
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk.
This site integrates every one of 4000 objects with a story about the history of medicine. The photography was carried out with great care to maximise the sense of physical presence of the objects. At the same time the stories and the interactives are intended to contextualise them. With its extensive use of both object images and interactives this is the synthesis of the experiences of http://www.ingenious.org.uk and of http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk
It is also possibly the last of its generation. The next generation of such products is likely to be even more expensive but also to draw on the bandwidth offered by fast broadband to create exciting new virtial experiences. Your reflections will be appreciated.
Robert Bud
Science Museum
Oh, it’s true, James. And there is a lot that could be said about the leadership, but people don’t want to go into print. Best to just leave it at this: it’s a casualty of the UK uni funding crisis. However, seems odd to close a world-leading institution…
The journal, Medical History, should be fine, it was well in place before the Centre, and should run as normal I would assume. As I think all the other publications would as well. I really don’t think this is going to affect anybody but those working as admin at the centre, and who UCL won’t absorb. All of the research fellows can transfer elsewhere; and all the academics are top quality and most are already on permanent staff, so they are fine. Again, its the admin that we should feel sorry for. But at least they have two years to find new positions. As do any academics who might not have a permanent contract with UCL. Overall, the rest of us researchers who would use the Wellcome Library won’t be affected. And I don’t think the discipline is in jeopardy. The Wellcome Turst is still pouring millions of pounds into Hist of Med, and will continue to do so. You really can’t blame the Trust, as they were spending as much on admin as on research in the past. Universities basically had a free ride, and its up to them to realise the importance of history of medicine and continue what a private and fantastic inst. like the Wellcome Trust started….
Here is a link to the ‘meat’ of the matter as it were.http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Medical-humanities/Grants/Medical-history-and-humanities/WTX059059.htm.
I think everybody in the UK over the past year has been expecting the Wellcome to pull away from paying 50% or more of the admin costs for Centres and Units, but I didn’t think they would also axe the flagship. The review outlines the big changes in the funding, and if you read between the lines….
Here is the new funding they are doing, http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Medical-humanities/Grants/Medical-history-and-humanities/index.htm
James, you have experience of being in a Wellcome centre that closed. What’s different here is that there was no quinquennial review, no conclusion that the centre was not meeting its targets, just – apparently – notification of the statutory 2-year run-down starting up.
The point is, that it is not the world’s leading institution, or even one of the better ones. What about Yale, Hopkins, Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Manchester, and many more? Why should the Centre be subject to peer review also? This is non-sense. The Wellcome Trust is a private charity. If a public body like UCL would decide to fund the Centre, then this is a different story. And if it is a supposed leading world institution, why isn’t UCL picking up the tab? Why is the Centre relying on a charity to pay the bills? Why was this never viewed as a bit daft in the first instance. Also, it is about time that the other fantastic departments who have a heavy emphasis on the history of medicine start seeing a bit more monies, as the Centre is no longer sucking millions out of the pot just because it was the ‘Centre’. The history of medicine is not in jeopardy as a discipline. We don’t need to worry at all about its future. The Centre did not make HoM what it is today, to make such claims seems to indicate the same delusions that led to the shut down, and quite frankly its insulting.
Sure, one argument is that the Centre wrongly felt it was the centre of the universe and thus immune from cuts. But I don’t really understand the funding – it wasn’t just Trust money with UCL hosting, was it? Did the funding get pulled from 2 directions at the same time – for different reasons??
The 16-17 April issue of the British Medical Journal has a comment by Wendy Moore about the closing of the Centre.
It would take too long to explain the complexities of the funding of the Wellcome Centre, most of which go back to the Trust enforced transfer of the old Academic Unit fully to UCL in 2000, but much of the funding in the 2005-10 grant went on the salaries of former Trust staff, now much reduced in number because of retirements and resignations. It is impossible to say why the Trust decided to withdraw funding in the middle of discussions to determine the parameters of the normal quinquennial review, since no official statement of closure has yet been received either from them or from UCL. But it would be naïve or self-serving to believe that they were not influenced by the amazing failure of the then Director, Hal Cook, to submit a bid for future funding, despite many public assurances to the contrary, or by the substantial financial irregularities in which he and the Administrator at least were complicit, although the extent to which either of them profited personally remains sub judice. Some non-teaching members of staff have already received redundancy notices as part of a UCL restructuring plan, but the closure of the Centre now puts all jobs, in whatever category, at risk. The future of Medical History is secure until the end of 2012, but the closure notice has blocked, at least for the moment, what would appear to be successful attempts to secure its longer term future. Nonetheless, there are reasonable grounds for hope that arrangements can be made in the next few months for the continuation of the journal beyond 2012, even if the closure of the Centre goes ahead.
Prof Nutton is entitled to his opinion, but I thought him a better historian, one who dealt in facts. Since he retired from the Centre in Sept 2009 he was never part of the discussions about its future except on one occasion: in the spring of 2009, managers at the Wellcome Trust made it clear that whatever future bid was made would have to be reduced by about a third from the current amount, making some staff redundancies inevitable. At the time, I was in negotiations with UCL about UCL picking up some of the costs, but some staff would still have to go. I invited Prof Nutton to advise me (and others at UCL involved in the preparation of the bid) during these decisions, and he declined any involvement.
Two other things: as he knows, it became impossible over the past summer for me to lead the bid, because several colleagues refused to work with me on a collective outlook for the Centre as a whole. The Vice Provost for Research therefore agreed with me that new leadership was necessary, and I resigned the Directorship in Sept and supported a transition and publicly urged all the staff to support the new leadership. Prof Nutton has seen none of the material I was working on beforehand in anticipation of leading the bid. As for the allegation that I might have personally profited from supposed finacial
irregularities: this is the first time such an allegation has ever been made as far as I know, and it is certainly not under investigation sub judice. The fact that he alleges such things without knowledge of the facts, in an attempt to blame the former director, who worked tirelessly for the success of the Centre, says more than he imagines about the reasons for recent problems.
Hal Cook
The legal status of blogs with respect to free speech vs. defamation is unclear, especially with respect to comments. Although I always prefer very wide limits for university policy discussions, I also want to be absolutely sure that I remain on the right side of the libel law. I have therefore removed the comment which mentioned a specific person’s role in the closing of the Wellcome Center. Since the comment has been online for a week, I’ve accepted to keep the answer for a while for the sake of fairness, but will soon remove it too, because it doesn’t really make sense without the former. None of the comments are anonymous, but I do not want this blog to become embroiled in a libel case. I realize I may have been naïve with respect to what can or cannot be said in the comment section of blogs, and I apologize to both commentators.
Added 2 May: the answer to the potentially defamatory comment and a third comment referring to a named person’s alleged role have also been unapproved.
Lets just keep some facts clear: Hal Cook was able to take up a Professorship at an Ivy League institution. Would they take on a scholar who was part of a scandal? I think not. Second. Hal Cook has made major contributions to the History of Medicine. He is a historian, not an administrator, not a bureaucrat. This seems to be the whole problem. Somebody took advantage, obviously a well seasoned bureaucrat, of the fact that a private charity and a University were trying to co-ordinate an academic centre. Therefore, both the Wellcome Trust and UCL think that the other is supposed to do this or that, and who gets caught in the crossfire? Not the faceless bureaucrat who has nothing to lose, but the academic respected throughout the world trying to manage the mess. Why would somebody like Hal Cook jeopardise a sparkling career? Any academic worth anything, who actually loves their job and their work, can make a fairly clear judgement on this case. Leave Hal Cook alone. He did the best he could at a place that was destined to fail because of the basic economic and political structures that supported it. For crying out loud people, were historians! Look at this as a historian. Stop focusing on individual agency and see how it was doomed to fail from the beginning. It just took greedy bankers in American and the UK to finally set off the charges….
The situation at the Wellcome Centre is extremely distressing and complex for all of us currently employed there. With the careers of promising students at stake and the uncertainty of many jobs, this matter is too serious for it to become a forum for gossip or self-serving statements.
Sharon Messenger
Agreed Sharon. Which is why uninformed tittle tattle should never be posted. This particular example stood unanswered for a week, and only was removed when its libellous nature was forcefully pointed out to the moderator because the post was being circulated as if it were fact. Jobs and careers are at stake here, and anyone claiming knowledge beyond his own direct experience about this tragic and frightening situation is in all likelihood merely trying to inflate his own importance. Let us all work together to save jobs, history of medicine, and academic integrity, and not turn on each other. Divided we fall.
As implied by some, with an external source such as the Trust funding an entire academic department within a University, there are bound to be differences of opinions about priorities especially in difficult financial times.
The web site of the Centre hints at a reason why the Trust may have lost confidence in the University
“… a current disciplinary case within UCL has prevented for legal reasons disclosure of some of the facts behind th[e] decision.” The implication as I read it, is that the financial mismanagement mentioned by the British Medical Journal article occurred at UCL OUTSIDE of the Wellcome Centre.
Innocent academics, and administrators as well, can readily get caught in the middle and blamed for a situation for which they have no responsibility. And some of the opinions posted about the Centre appear unnecessarily harsh. I have major qualms about allegations that the Centre is not one of the “better” institutions in the history of medicine. Where it ranks precisely is not relevant to the main issue: the withdrawal of funds from an existing centre of international repute. The human toll on those affected directly will be enormous.
Shouldn’t the protest about this wait at least until we hear what the Wellcome intends to do with the money it’s ‘saved’ from the admin costs? Is this going back into the current pool, into project grants and fellowships etc.? Or is it going to be used for something innovative – for example seeding the history of medicine in history departments which currently don’t have the specialty in place (or the expertise to get money from the Wellcome in other ways)? A couple of endowed lectureships in the history of medicine, biomedicine, ethics, life sciences etc. could really shake up the discipline, and would be extremely welcome in the current climate where many (ex-Wellcome fellowship holding…) post-docs are struggling to find permanent positions anywhere.
see Robert’s comment here:
http://www.corporeality.net/museion/2010/05/01/petition-against-the-closure-of-the-wellcome-trust-centre-for-the-history-of-medicine-at-ucl/comment-page-1/#comment-288184
The announcement of the proposed closure of the Centre comes as dreadful news. It represents a genuine “centre of excellence”, removal of which would damage not only British academic life but also international international co-operation in an important field. Anything possible should be done to seek a reprieve. Wellcome should have been looking for ways to develop the Centre rather than close it, given its crucial central role in the History of Medicine. One can only hope that another funding body will come forward.
“Early career researcher” asks “Shouldn’t the protest about this wait at least until we hear what the Wellcome intends to do with the money it’s ’saved’ from the … costs [presumably of those of the centre being closed]?” One might wait a very long time indeed only at most, in the end just to be able to guess, and lose the chance to protest on behalf of the existing Centre.
Secondly, given what the Trust has announced already, even if it does decide to put money into other projects, however worthy, it may later as easily to pull the money out again as it has here (and elsewhere from entire units). But disruption to many people’s lives resulting from uncertainty has started already.
The comment and those of one or two others implies a hope that they will benefit from the unfortunate toll and toil exacted on the targeted Centre.
Lastly the notion that support of endowed lectureships in “history of medicine, biomedicine, ethics, life sciences etc. could really shake up the discipline” seems to indicate a misunderstanding of what discipline is under threat here. However worthy the other topics, it is the history of medicine that has been attacked by this proposed cutback, and needs support. (I have observed how Deans at medical schools in the US, cavalierly confuse ethics and history and use funds intended for history to support ethics.)