Dear Colleague, 

I want to start with my sincere thanks for everything you have achieved this year. Because of you, Imperial’s star has kept rising. 

Imperial was ranked in the world top 10 by Times Higher Education, complementing our top 10 position in the QS World University Rankings, received Gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework, strong National Student Survey (NSS) results, and high positions in the Sunday Times, Guardian and Daily Mail rankings.  All of you played a part in making these happen.  

Across our community, there are countless important developments and successes to celebrate. From the publication of our new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, to the successful launch of the JUICE mission, to the Mathematics School in London and Cumbria Medical School, to the UK’s decision to rejoin the world's largest research collaboration programme, Horizon Europe. 

It has been a source of immense personal pride to see your successes, ingenuity and determination throughout the year.   

Next year will bring more exciting developments for Imperial. Chief among these will be the launch of our new Strategy. I shared an overview of this work during this week’s In Conversation with the President event, which you can watch here. 

Thank you to the many colleagues who have engaged in our strategy consultations. Your input has helped shape our journey to this point – and will continue to do so. 

When it’s launched in March, this Strategy will set our vision and ambition for the next decade; help guide our major decisions; position us to grasp new opportunities; and inspire others to join us, partner with us and invest in us.  

The Strategy will be rooted in our commitment to attracting and nurturing the best talent, regardless of background; creating an innovative and interdisciplinary research powerhouse that can match the scale and urgency of 21st century challenges and opportunities; and accelerating the impact of new discoveries, inventions and ideas, globally. 

Around the time our new strategy is launched you will also start to see our new visual identity rolling out. Imperial is a fantastic institution and this work will help us tell our story with more clarity and confidence. You can see some examples of the creative work on the Brand Project webpage. 

In the meantime, I hope you are able to enjoy spending time away from work in the coming weeks and a very big thank you to those staff who will be working over the festive period keeping campus running. I look forward to seeing you all in 2024.    

Best wishes,   

Hugh  

Professor Hugh Brady, President