Professor Malcolm Grant — UCL President and Provost

UCL is an exceptional institution, with a radical tradition and a distinctive character. The university’s commitment to excellence and innovation in research and teaching is central to its vision of enriching society’s intellectual, cultural, scientific, economic, environmental and medical spheres. The esteem in which it is held internationally is well reflected in its ranking as 4th in the world in the Times Higher-QS World University Rankings 2008. Similarly, UCL’s outstanding research achievements were reflected in a stellar performance in the Research Assessment Exercise 2008.

But no league table can hope to capture the true diversity and excitement of UCL. We pride ourselves on being a community, devoted to excellence across the board – in teaching, in research, in transferring knowledge out of the university for general public benefit, in promoting and enabling the growth of academic disciplines whilst also working across disciplinary divides to address some of the major problems facing mankind.

But we are also a community of all disciplines – a real university with intellectual curiosity engaged from archaeology and architecture, to nanotechnology and cancer science, to space science, ancient history, chemistry, law, economics – and that is but a small sample. And as London’s Global University we are fortunate to welcome outstanding staff and students from around the world to London, while also participating across global networks of intellectual activity. There is research underway at UCL that I know will fundamentally improve people’s lives.

Despite the real and serious challenges currently facing this and all universities, all of these qualities will hold good. UCL will continue to work in partnership with academic centres of excellence around the world, with industry and the professions, with governments, and with our network of alumni, to achieve the highest standards of excellence in the creation and application of knowledge.

Professor Malcolm Grant
UCL President and Provost