President's welcome to the 2017-18 Annual Report and Accounts
Imperial College London continues to achieve enduring excellence in education and in research for the benefit of society. Our achievements this year reflect our 2015–20 Strategy and demonstrate our ability to seize new opportunities not foreseen three years ago.
We continue to work towards a better Imperial
We are making significant advances through our . This includes an investment of £1.8 million in the renovation of teaching spaces. We initiated a comprehensive curriculum review in every department and launched our first global Massive Open Online Courses in artificial intelligence and creative thinking.
We are proud of the excellence of our academics and leaders. Colleagues were welcomed into the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Medical Sciences; and we celebrated the transformational contribution of Professor James Stirling, our first Provost, as he retired.
Our research achievements include new knowledge about Saturn from the Cassini mission, improving results for kidney dialysis patients with 3D imagery and using machine learning to make prosthetic limbs move more naturally. Our enterprising activity expanded with new programmes such as the Imperial Venture Mentoring Service to connect our innovators with business mentors.
We were the first to call for a Joint Expert Panel to help find a way forward with the USS pension scheme. We worked together on our Pay and Benefits Review. We are supporting our technician community with a new Technicians’ Portal.
The Dyson School of Design Engineering, our newest engineering department, moved into renovated space and will graduate its first cohort this year. Our ambitious vision for the South Kensington Campus was developed with the College community and set out in a new Masterplan.
We have expanded our engagement with our alumni. Thousands of our alumni have used our services, participated in events, talked to our students, volunteered and donated. A record £59 million in donations has been pledged to support our vision.
The developments in White City are impressive
The White City Campus is creating an exciting and rich environment for innovation, exploration, experimentation, risk-taking and growth. Our colleagues are currently moving into the Molecular Sciences Research Hub and utilising its state-of-the-art facilities to conduct transformative research and address global challenges.
The White City community is an integral part of the campus. The makerspaces, hackspaces, The Invention Rooms and other convening places provide opportunities for the public to be a part of – and benefit from – our community. We are grateful for the generous philanthropic support from the Mohn Westlake, Battcock, Berkeley, Garfield Weston, J.P. Morgan Chase and Elsevier Foundations.
In June 2018 we launched an ambitious campaign to raise £100 million to bring our world leading School of Public Health to White City. A transformative donation from alumnus Marit Mohn will create the Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing at Imperial’s School of Public Health in White City and will be a new state-of-the art hub for health and wellbeing research, education and community engagement. It will support pioneering research, education, and community engagement that will improve the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of childhood illness on both a local and global scale.
We are resolutely international
Imperial is a global European university and we continually advocate for support for international collaboration and talent mobility. We continue to develop collaborations in our academic programme and recently established a partnership in mathematics with France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and another partnership with Technical University of Munich.
In 2018, the first cohort of students graduated from Imperial’s joint medical school in Singapore, in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. This programme is at the forefront of a revolution in medical education with its team-based-learning and technology driven education.
In collaboration with MIT, we are exploring ways to collaborate with universities and non-profit research institutions in Africa. Imperial and MIT share a commitment to build partnerships with African institutions to address common challenges.
Imperial College London will continue to innovate, to invest in our people and facilities and take risks consistent with our financial sustainability to ensure our continued excellence.
These are but a sampling of the activities reflected throughout this Annual Report.
Professor Alice P. Gast
President of Imperial College London