Operational review: Foundations
High-quality transdisciplinary research built upon broad strengths in fundamental science, a world-class educational experience and emphasis on academic excellence are the foundations we commit to in our work.
These commitments link directly to our Academic Strategy which sets out our ambition to deliver transformative impact for benefit on a global scale through four societal themes: healthy, smart, sustainable and resilient. It also sets out our vision for a student experience that prepares our students to be leaders, to innovate and drive change. Our work to achieve these ambitions is at the heart of everything we do.
2021–22 in focus
A transformative education
Since launching our Learning and Teaching Strategy in 2017, we have worked to transform the education we offer at Imperial – delivering programmes that prepare students for a rapidly changing world, foster greater collaboration across our academic disciplines and further embed research into the student experience.
A key part of this work has been the implementation of our new strategy of blended learning, which has opened up an alternative future for pedagogy – where education is focused on the highest value interactions between teachers and students. We are using the latest technological innovations to enhance a sense of collaboration and community between students, and apply interactive teaching techniques.
We are investing in facilities and e-learning technologists to build our capacity to deliver digital teaching, which includes funding new resource-rich learning spaces for staff to explore different teaching techniques. The Digital Learning Hub and Ed Tech teams within our faculties are working with departments and our students to make the classroom more interactive and collaborative, and increase our ability to reach and engage with more people from a range of backgrounds around the world.
We learned many lessons about innovation in learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. We worked together to rethink our curriculum, involving the whole community in decision-making – decisions that we are now applying to refresh our Learning and Teaching Strategy and build a stronger, more flexible and resilient institution.
We have taken significant steps in recent years to improve the student experience. Alongside the implementation of our blended learning strategy, we have significantly invested in our facilities and student spaces, including the opening of Scale Space at the White City Campus and the launch of new ‘GoStudy’ spaces at the South Kensington Campus, which offer a variety of study spaces to suit students’ needs.
Our students have played an important role in this work. Teams across the College collaborated with students and the Imperial College Union to make decisions. Through the StudentShapers scheme, students have worked with staff from the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, the Estates team and Disability Advisory Service to redevelop existing study and social spaces around College – making them more inviting, accessible and practical for the students who use them.
We have continued to develop student services as we return to campus. Our Careers Service has modernised how it offers advice to students with online and in-person sessions with Career Consultants. Students with a disability have been offered more flexible support, while the counselling and mental health support teams have responded to student feedback to offer a blended service, both in-person and online.
Our ambition is to deliver a fully joined-up experience for our students, broadening their horizons and opening up an exciting future career and lifetime of learning. Through engaging outreach activities, including new projects like the Imperial College London Maths School, work to continuously improve our student-centred approach to recruitment and admissions, and our global network of alumni, we are enhancing the experience we offer to all our students.
Healthy society
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, our researchers continue to focus on emerging health challenges and improving public health.
In October 2021, Imperial launched a pioneering new Institute to tackle some of the biggest challenges in infectious disease. The Institute of Infection, led by Professor Charles Bangham and Professor Faith Osier, brings together a critical mass of researchers working across infectious disease and unites scientists from a range of fields including life sciences, mathematics, physics and engineering.
Imperial researchers are responding to new infectious disease challenges, such as bird flu and monkeypox. Professor Wendy Barclay, Head of Imperial’s Department of Infectious Disease, is leading Imperial’s contribution to a major new consortium to counter bird flu, which aims to find new ways to contain future outbreaks and strengthen our understanding of the virus’s transmission.
The College remains at the forefront of the response to COVID-19. Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine are working with partners including Queen Mary University of London, UCL and the UK Health Security Agency to explore immunity in the population to the virus and its variants. Their findings have shown that the Omicron variant provides a poor natural boost of COVID-19 immunity against reinfection and provide important insights into immunity across global populations. The College’s COVID-19 Response Team have continued to publish reports of their research findings, including on the global impact of vaccine booster doses and hospitalisation risks from the Omicron variant.
Meanwhile, Professor Dame Lesley Regan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial, has been appointed as the Women’s Health Ambassador for the first government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy aims to tackle the gender health gap and make the health and care system fairer.
Smart society
We are building our understanding of future information technologies and how they will shape our lives.
From robotics and data-enabled discovery and science, to fintech and the impact of digital transformation on society, our researchers are making a significant contribution to our understanding of the benefits and challenges of a smart society.
Researchers from Imperial’s Institute for Global Health Innovation published a report which highlights the opportunities and barriers for artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the health of the UK’s minority ethnic groups. The report found that AI could inadvertently worsen health inequalities if current challenges such as biased algorithms, poor data collection and a lack of diversity are not urgently addressed and called for further research and transparency around these technologies used in healthcare.
Imperial scientists are applying data and AI techniques from other sectors to further scientific research. A team from the Department of Life Sciences, working with Vector Space Biosciences, used a method typically used to find hidden connections between stocks and shares to discover and map links between proteins. The method could speed up life sciences research by automatically finding new correlations between genes, proteins and small molecules – many of which are involved in disease and could be targets for new drugs.
Sustainable society
We are committed to helping societies become more sustainable by transforming the way we think about resources, manufacturing and consumption.
Imperial researchers have received almost £1 million of funding from the UK government to develop a new modelling approach that will support the large-scale deployment of carbon storage technology in the UK by 2030. The approach, developed by a team from Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, UCL and industry partners including BP and Drax Power, is designed to help industry reduce the risks and costs associated with carbon storage.
The College is supporting the development of modern chemical production through the extension of its strategic partnership with BASF, the world’s largest chemical producer. Imperial is collaborating with the company on a range of research projects which includes developing techniques to use energy and materials more sustainably and replace fossil fuels with renewable alternatives.
The transition to zero pollution is a key theme of the Imperial Policy Forum. This year, the programme has partnered with thinktanks including Onward and the Institute for Government to explore how the UK could transition to zero pollution and net zero, hosting events focused on areas including behaviour change and skills development to support new green jobs.
Imperial’s community mobilised its collective expertise to help drive ambition at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in December 2021. The Grantham Institute hosted a number of events and sent a delegation of 25 staff to the conference. Speaking at the Confederation of British Industry’s conference on net zero in June 2022, Alyssa Gilbert, the Director of Policy and Translation at the Grantham Institute emphasised the need for ‘determination and focus’ to take action on climate change.
Resilient society
Climate change, food security, epidemics and emerging infectious disease are some of the most pressing challenges of our time. We are maximising the impact of our research to plan for future challenges.
Imperial is responding to these challenges through the Global Development Hub, which brings together our community and partners across the world. The Hub was introduced as one of the College’s Academic Strategy Projects in April 2022 and builds on our established track record of leading multidisciplinary research collaborations and projects, including the treatment of victims of conflict injuries, vaccine manufacturing and delivery, eradicating malaria and disease diagnostics. It aims to accelerate the global impact of Imperial’s research, education and innovation, engage with the United Nations Sustainable Agenda 2030 and work with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised in societies where multiple acute global challenges are concentrated.
Imperial researchers from the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemistry, working with a network of partners in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, have received a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop low-cost digital sensors that detect viruses in plants and crops, and could prevent disease spread. The sensors are designed to work with a smartphone and the researchers hope they will enable large-scale surveillance of crop disease in low-income regions and around the world.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization joined forces with researchers from Imperial’s Centre for Environmental Policy to map resources, such as water, land use and energy generation, to better understand and pin-point vulnerable areas and support improvements to how natural resources are managed.