Dr Chris Smith, the science communicator and Cambridge Fellow who gained an international audience in part due to his media work during the Covid-19 pandemic, is to be made redundant.

Smith is currently Public Understanding of Science Fellow at the Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE), as well as a consultant clinical virologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a Fellow of Queens’ College. Alongside these roles, he hosts the Naked Scientists podcast and regularly appears as a guest on BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as on other media channels.

While his media work and podcast are not formally included in his work for the University, he explains that his redundancy would endanger the podcast. “If I wasn’t employed by the University, I would have to find another job,” he told Varsity, adding that a new job “may not give me the time to spend on my outreach work”.

Smith says he was told at the end of May that the University intends to terminate his current position and has now entered into a consultation period which will end on Friday (27/06). Despite this consultation period, he claims to have heard “nothing” from the “University execs involved,” with the exception of the School of the Biological Sciences (SBS), with whom he expects to meet soon.

Although he was aware that he was “unlikely to do the same job forever,” Smith says that the decision to make him redundant came as a surprise, and that he is aware of just one other staff member at ICE whose role has been similarly threatened. Smith believes that the impact of his work, which he considers to be outreach work, has not been adequately recognised, as it is not measured by academic metrics which focus on published articles and citations.

However, Smith says he has “qualitative and objective data about the impact of [his] work,” including over 600 emails from across the world sent in support of him following the University’s decision.

In one of these emails, seen by Varsity, a science teacher at an international school in Portugal describes having “relied on Dr Smith’s brilliant podcasts for years to inspire students in classrooms across the globe,” going on to say that “many of them have gone on to pursue science at Cambridge University, thanks, in part, to the curiosity and excitement sparked by Dr Smith’s work”.

A spokesperson for ICE and the University said: “The Naked Scientists podcast is a separate entity that the University neither owns, controls nor has any direct influence over. The University of Cambridge is currently consulting with Dr Chris Smith about the future of his role with the University.”