About the Institute

UCL Institute of Neurology and the NHNN

The Institute of Neurology is a specialist postgraduate institute of UCL. It is closely associated in its work with the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals' NHS Foundation Trust, and in combination they form a national and international centre at Queen Square for teaching, training and research in neurology and allied clinical and basic neurosciences.

The Institute of Neurology is a key component of the newly formed Faculty of Brain Sciences at UCL, and has eight academic Departments.   These encompass clinical and basic research within each theme:

  • Brain Repair and Rehabilitation (Professor Masud Husain);
  • Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy (Professor Matthew Walker),
  • Clinical Neurosciences, Royal Free campus, (Professor Tony Schapira),
  • Imaging Neuroscience (Professor Ray Dolan); 
  • Molecular Neuroscience, incorporating the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies (Professor John Hardy);
  • Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders (Professor Linda Greensmith); Neurodegenerative Disease (Professor John Collinge);
  • Neuroinflammation (Professor Ken Smith).     

In parallel, there are currently six Divisions representing professional affiliations: Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery; Neurophysiology; Neuropathology; Neuropsychiatry and Neuropsychology; and Neuroradiology and Neurophysics.

33 Queen Square

The Institute employs over 500 staff, occupies some 12,000 sq m of laboratory, lecture room and office space, and has a current annual turnover of £53m.The Institute receives over £33m per annum in grants for research from the principal medical charities concerned with neurological diseases, and from government agencies such as the Medical Research Council.  Approximately 18% of the Institute's funding is obtained from the Higher Education Funding Council for England which has awarded high ratings for the Institute in each of the national Research Assessment Exercises since 1986.  The Institute currently holds over 300 active grants, supporting research into the causes and treatment of a wide range of neurological diseases, including movement disorders, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, brain cancer, stroke and brain injury, muscle and nerve disorders, cognitive dysfunction and dementia, and the work of the Institute's clinical academic staff is closely integrated with the Hospital's care of patients.    Generous support for research is provided through grant awards from the medical research charities:  in particular, the Brain Research Trust.

Continuing the record of exceptional achievement in previous Research Assessments (RAE), the Institute performed very strongly in the 2008 RAE. Almost 100 FTE staff were submitted for evaluation, including a number of outstanding early career researchers.  Overall 70% of our research was deemed to be internationally competitive or world leading, and submitted papers were very highly cited, with an average citation rate over the assessment period of 40 times per paper.    Three areas of research in particular were identified as world-leading: Cognitive neuroscience & human brain imaging, Inherited diseases & molecular, cellular and genetic neuroscience, and Neurodegenerative disease. 

UCL Neuroscience is currently rated second in the world by ISI Essential Science Indicators, and four of the top twelve most highly cited authors working worldwide in neuroscience and behaviour are based at the IoN.  

In the calendar year 2010, Institute staff published 968 papers, 22 book chapters and 7 books.    Forty papers were published in the top 50 of all scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Cell and New England Journal of Medicine.  There are seven Fellows of the Royal Society at Queen Square.

A number of important research centres are based at the Institute of Neurology. These include:
•    Wellcome Centre for Neuroimaging
•    MRC Prion Unit
•    MRC Centre for Neuromuscular Disease
•    Dementia Research Centre
•    Department of Health Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network (DENDRON)

The Institute also has active collaborative research programmes with the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, co-located at Queen Square and which will play an important role in the new Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour.

The UCL Institute of Neurology has a significant postgraduate teaching and training portfolio, with over 200 graduate students at Queen Square, and taught MSc courses in: Advanced Neuroimaging; Brain and Mind Sciences (an innovative two year, two centre programme); Clinical Neuroscience; and Clinical Neurology.  A new distance-learning  Diploma in Clinical Neurology (E-Brain) was launched in 2011.  Excellent graduate students of the highest quality are recruited to both ION and UCL-wide PhD programmes, including the ION hosted MRC DTA funded 4-year PhD in Clinical Neurosciences, and the Wellcome 4-year PhD in Neuroscience, which are supported through Research Council, charity and industry funded studentships.  Institute staff contribute to undergraduate teaching of clinical neurology for the UCL Medical School.

The UCL Institute of Neurology promotes teaching and research of the highest quality in neurology and the neurosciences. The Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery are members of  UCL Partners, Europe's largest academic health science partnership.