In this section

Overview

Our strategy, Science for Humanity, is unashamedly ambitious in seeking to maximise Imperial’s potential as a force for good in the world.

It builds on the university’s strong disciplinary foundations, highly collaborative and collegial culture, passion for innovation, proven convening power, extensive global partnerships, incredible network of alumni, friends and supporters and world top ten ranking.

Our strategy highlights a number of cross-institutional initiatives that will consolidate our position among the world’s leading institutions tackling global grand challenges.

The Imperial Class of 2030 is an ambitious multi-pronged programme to nurture the most talented, the most enterprising and the most diverse graduating class we have ever had the privilege to serve. This will be in part driven by new investments in our Imperial Inspires Scholarship Programme, our digital and virtual learning environment and our campuses, including the next phase of our White City Deep Tech Campus.

We will launch a major recruitment drive, the Imperial Future Leaders Campaign and we will invest in leadership development and skills for our diverse community, including a new Imperial Future Leaders Academy for early-career staff.

We will introduce the new Imperial Institute of Extended Learning, which will help future-proof careers, businesses and communities by providing the advanced skills training and values-driven leadership needed to thrive in a tech-enabled world.

We will create four new cross-institutional Schools of Convergence Science to bring intense focus, interrogation and research impact to the emergent forces shaping our future at unprecedented scale: (1) climate, energy and sustainability; (2) human and artificial intelligence (AI); (3) health, medtech and robotics; (4) space, security science and telecommunications.

And through our new Imperial Global network we will achieve greater global collaboration to meet global grand challenges.

To further energise our vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, we are creating a new venture fund, Science Capital Imperial. And we will deepen our partnerships with government, industry, our NHS partners, local communities and other stakeholders to establish the Imperial West Tech Corridor, to maximise our collective potential as a powerful engine for innovation, job creation and inclusive growth.

And underpinning everything that we do will be Sustainable Imperial – our university-wide commitment to play a leading role in the global fight against climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

Our founding mission was ‘to be useful’; an understated precis of all that our exceptional teaching, research and innovation have made and continue to make possible.

But before we can usefully change the world, we must first seek to understand it. Our strategy engages with, and animates, this foundational idea: that Imperial’s shared purpose is one of inquiry and action. A scientific mindset that encourages imagination, celebrates precision, demands patience, insists on humility, rewards accidents, steels our backs and makes us brave.

In science, as in strategy, there is no easy prophecy and no shortcut to progress. An understanding – sharpened, deepened, or totally new – is the first and only precondition.

While much of our direction in this document will feel new, our destination remains unchanged: to become a global home for everyone who believes in the power of science to discover, to create, to explain and to transform. To understand more of the universe and improve the lives of more people in it.

Imagine that.

Imperial today

Leading science

We are a science-based university with a difference. Our enduring STEMB focus, and the exceptional disciplinary foundations that underpin it, are the reason for our continued high-impact trajectory and place among the top ten universities in the world.

Interdisciplinary research

We are an ecosystem that thrives on connection and collaboration. The complexity of the challenges before us demands a truly integrated interdisciplinary approach. At Imperial, we forge links between faculties, departments, disciplines, industries, governments and more because we know that greater possibility for advancement is found at those intersections.

Inspiring students

We are a welcoming home for scientific imagination; a place where exceptional minds are enabled with inspiration, resource and freedom so that they might look deeper, dream further and ask bigger questions.

Meaningful impact

We have the spirit of a 117-year-old startup with an agility and orientation to the future that belies our age and heritage. Here you will find a culture of discovery, innovation and entrepreneurial thinking, where breakthrough science is chased, translated and applied at incredible speed and with transformative impact.

A trusted partner

We are an ally of progress, seen by many of the world’s leading knowledge and technology-driven organisations as a cultivator of exceptional talent and future leaders, and trusted as the partner of choice for research, innovation and impact.

The legacy of London

We are a global hub in a global city. Our work shapes the world and our community reflects it, brought together by the undeniable gravitational pull of London’s energy, creativity, diversity, economy and opportunity.

Imperial tomorrow

This strategy imagines a path through an unpredictable world that is facing unprecedented challenges. It is a blueprint to ensure we continue to maximise our potential as a force for good in the world, to deepen our rare and specific competencies, and to serve students and society in the uncertainty of tomorrow.

After all, as one of the world’s leading research universities, we are purpose-built to engage with uncertainty, and to summon our strengths against it.

This is how we prepare for the expected and the unexpected. This is how we rigorously fulfil our educational mission and our research potential. It is how we shape the future. And it begins with three core aims.

1. Enabling talent

Our strategy will develop the people and skills the world needs now and into the future. We will work to attract, nurture and champion the best local, national and global talent wherever they are, and to empower them with everything they need to make a meaningful difference.

2. Powering research

Our strategy is a plan to strengthen Imperial’s enabling environment for discovery, innovation and impact. We will create an even more deeply connected knowledge community and interdisciplinary research powerhouse that will meet the scale and urgency of the moment and respond with intelligence, responsibility and agility to everything that comes next.

3. Amplifying impact

Our strategy will help to accelerate Imperial towards, and scale the impact of, new discoveries, inventions and ideas, and position us as a trusted convenor and partner for knowledge and tech organisations across the globe. We will look beyond our London campuses to our wider network and wider responsibility, honouring our social and civic purpose, in London for the world.

Imperial together

To ensure our strategy will have a meaningful and enduring impact, we know we must create opportunities for everyone in our community to fulfil their potential – always guided by our values and behaviours: Respect, Collaboration, Excellence, Innovation and Integrity.

Great people

We will continue to attract, nurture and support world-class talent from everywhere. Our strength comes from celebrating and harnessing the diversity of our community where everyone contributes their own perspective, experience and skills so that together we can excel in the delivery of our shared mission.

We will champion an inclusive culture and invest in people so that they are inspired and equipped to unleash their potential. We will build and maintain a culture centred on the wellbeing, growth and belonging of our community. We will create a diverse and vibrant community where our values are evident to all, and we are recognised as innovators in every aspect of our work.

Great environment

We will create an integrated human, physical and digital ecosystem that fosters and facilitates collaboration and community and promotes discovery, learning and innovation. And we will deliver sustainable campuses to meet our 2040 Net Zero Carbon commitments.

The pace of technological change has never been faster. We will leverage the digital landscape and increased digital innovation to grasp new opportunities that are essential to the achievement of our world-class research and education. We will create a world-class digital experience for students. Our staff will have the tools and facilities they need to undertake world-changing research.

Great support

A world-leading academic endeavour must provide everyone with the opportunities and tools they need to thrive. We will support our staff to deliver an inspirational education and to take the inception of a research idea through to publication and translation into real-world application.

We will give our students a consistently inspiring, tailored and supportive experience from application through to their lifelong interactions with Imperial as part of our alumni community. We will foster a culture of innovation and practice of continuous improvement where colleagues are empowered to combine their strengths collectively to turn great ideas into an even better service.

Download the Imperial Strategy (PDF)