The School of Physics and Chemistry supports one of the largest research schools on campus, with a total annual income in excess of £4.5M.

The central role of Chemistry in the scientific and engineering disciplines is reflected in strong links and joint programmes with other departments at UniS, including Physics, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Chemical and Process Engineering and the Polymer Research Centre. Research is led by 24 academics (8 Professors) and is organised into 5 thematically defined Laboratories : Computational Chemistry; Inorganic Materials and Surface Reactivity; Polymers, Colloids and Interfaces; Supramolecular and Analytical Chemistry; Synthetic Biological and Organic Chemistry.

The Department of Physics was awarded a grade 5 in the recent RAE exercise and supports research in the areas of: Nuclear Physics - exploring the physics of Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics; Optoelectronic Devices and Materials - exploring the fundamental physics of laser-matter interactions and developing new materials for photonics and advanced optics and Radiation, Materials and Medical Physics- divided into the three areas of: Ion Beam Analysis, Radiation Imaging and Medical Physics and Soft Condensed Matter