
2024 Phillips Award: Dr David Sands
For work in higher education, particularly degree accreditation and the development of the new Institute of Physics accreditation scheme.
Dr David Sands has worked nationally and internationally over the last 20 years to support physics and physics educators in higher education. As the Institute of Physics (IOP)-nominated representative, he served two terms on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)’s Commission 14 (physics education) from 2014 to 2021, and as chair of the Physics Education Division of the European Physical Society, he actively collaborated with the IOP Higher Education Group to arrange joint meetings on topics of interest.
Within the IOP, he has worked extensively to promote physics education and in particular physics education research as a discipline. He served on the Education Board (which later became the Education Committee) from 2007 to 2016 and on the Higher Education Advisory Group from its inception to its dissolution following an IOP restructure. For several years, he was a member of the Committee of the Higher Education Group, helping organise meetings and events, and in particular helping to establish the annual Physics Higher Education Conference (PHEC) as an IOP-supported conference. He also served as chair of the Higher Education Group from 2014 to 2017.
His most significant contribution to the IOP’s work in education has been in degree accreditation. As an IOP accreditation assessor from 2005 to the present date, he is one of the most experienced of current assessors and has made around 40 visits to different institutions, chairing well over half of those visits. He was appointed to the Degree Accreditation Committee in 2006, becoming chair in 2013 until 2019. As chair, he led a group that reviewed the accreditation criteria over the period 2017 to 2020. Degree accreditation is reviewed periodically, but this review was radical, changing the entire scheme to focus on the abilities of a graduate rather than the content of a degree. The graduate outcomes very much reflect his deep familiarity with physics education research and the development of physics skills and competences.
The outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 delayed the implementation of the new scheme to this current academic year. Nevertheless, the scheme has changed the way that many departments are approaching degree accreditation and allowed them the freedom to develop physics programmes in more exciting ways. It is possible to say now that the changes have been successful and that the new scheme represents not only a significant contribution to physics education nationally, but also a significant contribution to the IOP’s commitment to standards in physics education as set out in the IOP’s Royal Charter.