Our enablers help us to deliver our strategy. Our enablers comprise three key elements. The first is diversification of our revenues – a central part of our strategy to achieve financial sustainability. Secondly, we aim to provide professional support, consistent processes and appropriate technology for our staff and students. Thirdly, when pursuing new opportunities, we will engage in outside-the-box thinking, considering possibilities for innovation.
We recognise that we have significant ground to cover in terms of diversifying our revenue. Our reliance on tuition fee income has increased this year following the enrolment of more students than in past years (more on this in the Financial Review). We acknowledge that these higher student numbers are driven by the unusual circumstances of the pandemic and we are actively pursuing new partnerships and exploring possibilities for alternative revenue streams.
We have invested heavily in process-improvement this year, both in terms of time and money. We are currently upgrading our systems across College, aiming to enhance the efficiency of certain tasks with updated technology.
The White City Campus brings together scientific researchers, corporate partners, entrepreneurs and the local community to co-exist and co-create on an unprecedented scale, and turn cutting-edge scientific research into real-world benefits for society.
This year’s accounts show a £13.2 million return to the College through the sale of TWIG Education to Weld North Education, the USA’s largest provider of digital curriculum solutions. TWIG is a digital science education resource for primary school-level learners that has been developed in collaboration with Imperial since 2014, in order to inspire more students around the world to explore STEM-based careers and aspire to university study for the first time. This sale demonstrates both the value of Imperial’s brand and expertise, and the impact we can have around the world.
2020–21 in focus
Fast growth for Imperial’s deep science startups
Despite the challenges of the past year, three life sciences startups based at the White City Incubator – Imperial’s hub for growing deep science startups – are growing fast. They have moved into new office space at the Translation and Innovation Hub (I-HUB) and lab space in the White City district. Affinity Biomarker Labs and SIME Clinical AI have pivoted their technology to a COVID-19 application, while SMART Respiratory Products is developing software to enable smart, remote monitoring of respiratory conditions.
A scaleup success
Agri-food tech startup Arborea is also moving on – from White City to Portugal – after securing €3.6 million of investment to scale up its technology.
The team has spent the past five years researching the best way to grow organic, healthy food ingredients with the smallest environmental impact, aiming to feed the world’s present and future generations while protecting the planet.