Imperial College London continues to push the frontiers in world leading research, life changing education and transformative innovation. Our Academic Strategy will help us realise our ambition to deliver transformative impact for societal benefit on a global scale. It draws on our ground-breaking fundamental research and ability to develop new insights to enable sustainable change and improve our world. It sets out our vision for an improved student experience that will prepare our students to be leaders, to innovate and drive change.

Provost’s introduction

Imperial College London continues to push the frontiers of world-leading research, life-changing education and transformative innovation. Our community works together to solve the big scientific questions and challenges of our time.

Our mission is to discover new knowledge and to make use of it. We use our deep understanding of the world to address some of its most pressing challenges and identify new opportunities to improve it.

We want to create a world in which society is healthy, sustainable, smart and resilient. Our Academic Strategy provides us with that focus and will help us realise that ambition. It draws on our ground-breaking fundamental research, our creativity, imagination and ability to develop new insights and knowledge to help make sustainable change and improve our world. It sets out our vision for an improved student experience that will prepare our students to lead, innovate and drive change. It reflects how we want to be as a community.

What is the Academic Strategy for?

The Academic Strategy builds on the aspirations of the College Strategy and department and faculty strategies, and connects up with other strategies including Learning and Teaching, Advancement and Estates. By working together, we can increase our capacity and capability, enabling the kind of reach that can only be attained by working at scale across the College. This will help us to increase our reach and deliver outcomes that both make a difference in the world and raise Imperial’s profile.

The College Strategy sets out a vision for Imperial as a place for authoritative thinking, world-leading teaching, and creative research ideas.

The Academic Strategy articulates the specific ways that we will fulfil that vision. It provides a cohesive direction for the College to focus its activity, build partnerships and uncover new opportunities. It will act as a guide for where to focus our attention and effort, to help us seize opportunities and leverage external resources to support our mission. And it will help us prioritise our internal investment of people, time, space and money.

The Academic Strategy will also be used externally, to raise Imperial’s profile around the world as a world-leading research-intensive university, helping us to continue to attract the best students and staff, opening new opportunities both nationally and internationally, and inviting new partnerships.