2023 annual review

An introduction to the UCL 2023 Annual Review from UCL's President & Provost, Dr Michael Spence AC.

"Welcome to the 2023 Annual Review of the last year at UCL. In these pages you’ll find just some of the extraordinary work that UCL produced in 2022.

It’s fair to say that 2022 was a year of challenges, including the effects of climate change taking hold across the globe, the cost of living crisis here in the UK and abroad, continued geopolitical instability, including the war in Ukraine, and of course the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

But our students and staff have nevertheless made huge contributions, contributions in areas as diverse as archaeology, economics, biofuels, gene therapy and dementia. This was borne out most strikingly in the results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework exercise, where UCL was rated second in the UK for research power – second only to Oxford.

2022 saw our people working on problems ranging from the global to the local. UCL’s experts made regular appearances at high-profile, international conferences such as COP27 – but also made huge social and cultural impact in our home borough of Camden through our London Framework. And we demonstrated that our impact goes beyond the academic and extends to the economy. A report back in June demonstrated that our annual contribution to the UK economy is about £9.9 billion – the equivalent of an Olympic Games every single year. 

In the last year we’ve celebrated 120 years of excellence in education and society at the IOE, and we've opened our new state-of-the-art campus on the Olympic Park in East London. UCL East is set to make an extraordinary contribution in areas from robotics and big data to ecology, heritage and assistive technology. We’ve also launched new centres specialising in public policy and in climate change education – areas of innovation that will prove to be vital to future generations. 

Looking to the year ahead, 2023 will see the launch of our new five-year strategy. It focuses our work, capitalises on our strengths and expertise, and assists us to make a real difference in tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges. 

I hope you’ll enjoy finding out more about us and about our work in this Review. If you’d like to stay up to date with us in 2023, do make sure you’re following us on social media. And if you’d like to visit us – maybe you’re thinking of studying here, or you’re just curious to get an insight into life at one of the world’s top universities – there are plenty of options including our brand-new walking tour, launched last year. You’ll find information about visiting us in these pages. Wishing you all a wonderful and productive 2023!"

Visitor
The Master of the Rolls

President & Provost
Dr Michael Spence AC

Vice-Provost (Education & Student Experience)
Professor Kathleen Armour

Vice-Provost (Faculties)
Professor Anthony Smith

Vice-Provost (Health)
Professor David Lomas

Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement)
Professor Geraint Rees

Vice-President (Advancement)
Mrs Angharad Milenkovic

Vice-President (External Engagement)
Mrs Kirsty Walker

Vice-President (Operations)
Mr Andy Smith (interim)

Vice-President (Strategy)
Mr Paul Clarke

Arts & Humanities
Professor Stella Bruzzi

Brain Sciences
Professor Alan Thompson

Built Environment
Professor Christoph Lindner

Engineering Sciences
Professor Nigel Titchener-Hooker

IOE
Professor Li Wei

Laws
Professor Eloise Scotford

Life Sciences
Professor Duncan Craig (interim)

Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Professor Ivan Parkin

Medical Sciences
Professor Mark Emberton

Population Health Sciences
Professor Ibrahim Abubakar

Social & Historical Sciences
Professor Jennifer Hudson

Pro-Provost (UCL East)
Professor Paola Lettieri

Ex Officio

President and Provost, Dr Michael Spence AC (since 2021)

Education Officer, Students' Union UCL (since 2022) Hamza Ahmed

Union Affairs Officer, Students' Union UCL (since 2022) Deniz Akinci

Appointed members

Mr Dominic Blakemore (since 2015) Vice-Chair

Mr Victor Chu CBE (since 2019) Chair

Mr Phil Clark (since 2022)

Ms Tina Harris (since 2022)

Ms Tania Holt (since 2022)

Ms Lindsay Nicholson MBE (since 2014) Senior Appointed Officer

Mr Turlogh O'Brien CBE (since 2018)

Ms Christine Ohuruogu MBE (since 2022)

Lord John Sharkey (since 2017)

Dr Justin Turner KC (since 2017)

Ms Sarah Whitney (since 2017) Treasurer

Elected members

Professor Stephanie Bird (since 2021)

Professor Jon Butterworth (since 2021)

Professor Ralf Schoepfer (since 2020)

Dr Alun Coker (since 2019)

Dr Martin Fry (since 2020)

Professor Helen Roberts (since 2019)

Secretary

Ms Anne Marie O'Mullane (interim)

UCL came second in the UK for research power in 2021’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) by a measure of average research score multiplied by staff numbers submitted. For this, 93 per cent of our research was graded 4* ‘world leading’ and 3* ‘internationally excellent’. Our research received a 'grade point average' of 3.50 (out of 4) – an improvement from 3.22 in 2014. A total of 3,432 UCL academics submitted to the REF process. 

UCL came second in research power only to Oxford (1st) and we maintained our position as top in the UK for research power in medicine, health and life sciences as well as social sciences. Other UK leaders in research power include Cambridge (3rd), Edinburgh (4th), and Manchester (5th). 

The REF is carried out approximately every six to seven years by the UK’s Higher Education funding bodies, to assess the quality of research across 157 UK universities and to share how this research benefits society both in the UK and globally. 

The results are significant for benchmarking research excellence across UK institutions and are used to inform the allocation of around £2billion of public investment in research every year. This Quality Related (QR) funding enables us to invest in the best people and facilities, to provide an environment in which early career researchers can thrive and work with our partners to address the biggest challenges facing humanity. 

Watch the video: 

• Dr Michael Spence, UCL President & Provost about the REF21

Find out more: 

• UCL REF2021 website
• Listen to UCL's REF2021 podcast, 'Where research transforms lives'
• Research Excellence Framework
• Full article on UCL News

December 2022 saw the UK’s Minister for Disabled People, Tom Pursglove, officially open UCL’s Global Disability Innovation Hub (UCL GDI Hub) at the heart of the new UCL East campus on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford in east London. 

UCL GDI Hub is the World Health Organisation’s first Global Collaborating Centre on Assistive Technology (AT). The new facility will supercharge UCL GDI Hub’s work in the UK and internationally to create a fairer world for the estimated 1.2 billion people with disabilities. The hub will provide the facilities for partnership-working and aims to produce new technologies, designs and processes to support disabled individuals in society. 

The hub is based at One Pool Street, the first building on the UCL East campus, which opened its doors in the Autumn of 2022 to around 500 postgraduate students in robotics, ecology and big data, global health, assistive technology, urbanism, heritage and the internet of things. 

One Pool Street, just along the river from the London Aquatics Centre, will be joined in 2023 by a larger building opposite called Marshgate, standing beside the London Stadium and giant ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture. 

Find out more

• Full story on UCL News
• UCL East
• UCL GDI Hub 

2022 marked the 120th anniversary of the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Over the course of the year, the IOE120 campaign delved into the history of its wide-ranging and pioneering work across education, culture, psychology, and social science and explored how it has contributed to changes in individuals’ lives and society throughout its 120-year history.  

The campaign covered events and shared a variety of content (videos, podcasts, blogs, stories) inviting the community to join in the celebrations and connect with staff, students, alumni, partners and friends.

Watch the video: 

• The story of IOE

Find out more:

• IOE120  

Two UCL researchers, both based in UCL Social & Historical Sciences, have been awarded prestigious 2022 Philip Leverhulme Prizes worth £100,000 for their internationally recognised work in archaeology and economics. 

Each year, the Leverhulme Trust gives out 30 such prizes to exceptional researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are extremely promising. The Trust offers 5 prizes in each of the following subject areas, which change every year: Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, and Languages and Literatures. 

Dr Corisande Fenwick’s (UCL Archaeology) new project will focus on empire and state formation, agriculture, technology, and Islamic and late antique archaeology. The development of new statistical methods for studying the causes of intergenerational mobility and economic inequality will be the focus for Professor Daniel Wilhelm's (UCL Economics) project.  

Find out more:  

• See the full list of prize winners 
• Dr Corisande Fenwick’s academic profile
• Professor Daniel Wilhelm’s academic profile
• UCL Archaeology
• UCL Economics
• UCL Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences 

UCL spinout Freeline Therapeutics is taking ground-breaking gene research from UCL, with the aim of developing it into a potentially life-changing treatment for people with haemophilia B. 

Haemophilia B is a rare and inherited bleeding disorder caused by low levels of the protein factor IX (FIX) which is found in blood and needed for forming clots. In order to combat the disorder patients currently must inject themselves with FIX, to prevent excessive bleeding.  

Despite advances in the treatment of Haemophilia B, many patients experience debilitating joint damage due to bleeding, and the disease can have a serious adverse impact on their lives. Now, with the help of research developed at UCL, Freeline Therapeutics gene therapy could mean haemophiliac patients may only need a single treatment to alter their FIX levels, ultimately removing the need for regular injections.  

The spinout is now developing three gene therapy candidates to transform the research developed into life-changing results.  

Watch the video: 

• Freeline Therapeutics: A UCL spinout developing life-changing treatments

Find out more:  

• Freeline Therapeutics
• UCL Innovation and Enterprise 

UCL is among the first five universities to qualify for the University Mental Health Charter Award, which recognises its commitment to continuous improvement in mental health and wellbeing.  

The University Mental Health Charter Award scheme, run jointly by Universities UK and the charity Student Minds, aims to encourage universities to develop a whole-university approach to mental health. The Charter Award is a voluntary accreditation scheme that more than 40 universities have signed up for and which supports institutions to understand their areas of strength and weakness in mental health and wellbeing, and assess their progress. 

The assessment team noted there is a “genuine commitment from the leadership team, managers and staff to honestly identify problems and to seek evidence based, strategic approaches, through cultural change”. 

Find out more

• UCL News article
• UCL Institute of Mental Health
• University Mental Health Charter 
• Student Minds 

The UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic (UCL iLAC) won the award for Legal Aid Firm/Not for Profit Agency at this year’s Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards (LALY). The awards are recognition of the vital work undertaken by legal aid lawyers. The ceremony, run by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, took place on Tuesday 12 July in London and was attended by 600 guests, with Baroness Helena Kennedy presenting the awards. UCL iLAC is the first university law clinic to receive this award. 

UCL iLAC is run by the UCL Centre for Access to Justice (CAJ) at UCL Laws. Based in Stratford, the clinic offers members of the local East London community legally aided and free legal advice on all aspects of social welfare law. It is the only university law clinic with a legal aid contract. UCL Laws students volunteer at the clinic, assisting staff on all aspects of cases, including advocacy, while learning about legal aid and access to justice. Working on real life cases provides an inspirational learning experience for students, understanding the significant problems faced by those struggling to access justice and providing the opportunity for students to make a real difference to the local community.  

Find out more:  

• UCL Laws
• UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic
• Full story on UCL Laws website

Launched in November 2022, Bartlett Alternative is a new creative hub sharing diverse work and references used and created by staff and students across The Bartlett. Through this innovative hub of learning references and resources, we are challenging the conventional and the traditional, and seeking to diversify knowledge and experience through an interdisciplinary and intersectional lens. It is a collective thinking and sharing space which celebrates and amplifies underrepresented voices, narratives, and agendas.

Bartlett Alternative was created by The Bartlett Faculty Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) team, Vice Dean of EDI Sara Shafiei in collaboration with Isaac Nanabeyin Simpson (Lecturer, Teaching), and the Bartlett EDI Working Group. We would like especially thank all staff and students who have contributed to the platform.

Find out more: 

• The Bartlett, UCL’s Global Faculty of the Built Environment
• Bartlett Alternative

New virtual reality (VR) technology created by UCL academics is opening up cutting-edge sustainable science to school children in the UK and India who might otherwise never have the opportunity to access it. 

Dr Stephen Hilton (UCL School of Pharmacy) is working with a multidisciplinary team across the two countries to bring global university labs to pupils, enabling them to conduct virtual scientific experiments and learn from each other. 

Through a £100,000 grant from the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), 14 scientists across nine Indian institutions and five UK universities formed the India-UK Innovation & Sustainability Chemistry Consortium (ISCC), aiming to tackle important global sustainability challenges and inspire and train the next generation of chemistry leaders through novel outreach programmes. 

Find out more: 

• UCL Faculty of Life Sciences
• UCL School of Pharmacy
• UCL News article 

As part of its commitment to support trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming students, UCL has launched a new fund to help with the purchase of items that will make them more comfortable with their gender presentation. The Gender Expression Fund was set up at the request of UCL’s LGBTQ+ Student Network in recognition that a disconnect between gender identity and appearance can be a significant source of stress and anxiety for people who are gender diverse. The Fund offers UCL students up to £100 to buy gender affirming products such as clothing, beauty products or travel for medical or therapy appointments.

Find out more

• UCL News article
• Students’ Union UCL: Gender Expression Fund 

An independent report into UCL’s economic and social impact has found that UCL’s annual impact of £9.9bn across the UK is comparable to the trade boost delivered by the London 2012 Olympics.

An independent report into UCL’s economic and social impact has found that UCL’s annual impact of £9.9bn across the UK is comparable to the trade boost delivered by the London 2012 Olympics.

Led by policy and economics consultancy London Economics, the report reviewed UCL’s impact from a diverse range of activity including research, entrepreneurship, teaching and educational exports in the 2018-19 academic year. It found that every pound spent by UCL produced £5.90 in economic benefit across the UK, which is a 12% increase in UCL’s impact since 2015-16.

The report showed how UCL are supporting to the economy and contributing to the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda by creating 19,000 full-time jobs across the UK (of which 7,400 were outside London) and promoting economic growth by investing £3bn through our supply chain. Just over a third of this impact occurs outside of London.

The report confirmed the significant role UCL plays in training up the future workforce, tackling global challenges through research and development and attracting overseas students.

Watch the video:

UCL’s annual economic impact comparable to London 2012 Olympics

Key findings of the report: 

• UCL generated £9.9bn of economic impact across the UK in 2018/19 – comparable every year to the trade boost delivered by the 2012 London Olympics
• For every pound spent by UCL, £5.90 was generated in economic benefit
• UCL’s research and knowledge exchange provides its largest economic impact, £4.1bn across the UK economy in 2018/19
• The economic impact generated by UCL’s teaching and learning activities was £990 million in 2018/19
• The economic contribution generated by international students in the UCL 2018/19 cohort amounts amounted to £1.7bn in 2018/19
• The £1.6bn total expenditure on UCL activities in 2018/19 generated a total economic benefit of over £3bn
• UCL’s spending supported a total of 19,075 jobs across the UK economy in 2018/19 

Find out more:  

• UCL News article
• Economic and Social Impact of UCL - Summary
• Economic and Social Impact of UCL - Final Report
• London Economics 

Work continued at pace on our ground-breaking programme to create the world’s leading translational neuroscience centre. A new landmark facility at 256 Grays Inn Road will support our existing facilities at Queen Square to create one of the leading translational neuroscience centres in the world. 

In early 2022, we reached the deepest point of the building's excavations at 16 metres below ground burying a time capsule in the depths of the building, including a range of objects that tell the story of the centre’s foundation, including a book of testimonials, a selection of commonly used lab items in 2022, a COVID vaccine vial and research image photographs from early career researchers and students. 

Scheduled for completion in 2024, this new facility is a partnership between UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, the UK Dementia Research Institute and UCLH National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. It will serve to support UCL research into breakthrough treatments to fight neurological diseases, like dementia, now the world’s leading cause of disability. We are investing in innovation and collaboration, using cutting-edge technology, shared laboratory space, equipment and central services to create new and more efficient ways of working and bringing research scientists, clinicians and patients under one roof together to enable an active dialogue between individuals with neurological diseases, their doctors and researchers.

Find out more:  

• ION-DRI: A world-class centre of excellence in neuroscience 

A select group of universities including UCL have been selected for the Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP). The partnership which has featured UCL since 2020 aims to better understand the impacts of extreme weather and climate change and the affects that these have on society.  

Through the partnership, UCL will build on existing projects with the Met Office by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of researchers from 12 UCL departments and centres, including the recently established Advanced Research Computing Centre, to transform hazard and data science in weather and climate modelling to help tackle global issues. 

UCL’s contribution will focus on three main areas: 

• improving risk-based decision making by increasing our understanding of the impacts of environmental hazards
• using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to remain at the cutting edge of weather and climate prediction
• developing a federated cloud data platform for use by the Met Office and partner scientists and experts. 

The UCL Met Office Joint Chair is Professor Serge Guillas in Statistical Science. 

Find out more:

• Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences
• Professor Serge Guillas
• Met Office Academic Partnership
• UCL News article

UCL has launched a new Policy Lab to transform debates on key policy issues through radical innovation and collaboration.  

With the support of the UCL Departments of Political Science and Economics, the Lab acts as a space for innovative ideas, methods, and ways of doing public policy. It brings together world-leading researchers from across UCL with campaigners, politicians, philanthropists, businesspeople and more, acknowledging that today’s problems no longer respect the narrow, traditional boundaries of research or policy. 

Officially launched at the close of the last academic year, with speeches from the Provost and President, Michael Spence, the out-going Dean, Sasha Roseneil, the in-coming Dean, Jennifer Hudson, and leading external collaborators, the playwright, James Graham, economist, Paul Johnson, and campaigner, Chrisann Jarrett, the Lab is working on some of the biggest policy challenges, both domestic and international. Early funded projects include:  

• Tackling inequality in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 
• Reforming immigration policy in partnership with the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy (RAMP) cross-party group
• Improving good governance in the UK by providing in-detail support to public policy officials, supported by Unbound Philanthropy. 

Find out more:  

• UCL Policy Lab 

Since its founding in 1826, UCL has been at the heart of the Bloomsbury community. For nearly 200 years, UCL has been the home of ground-breaking and innovative research that has gone on to change the world.

To further open up UCL to the general public, the UCL Walking Tour was created to invite members of the public onto campus to learn more about UCL’s rich and radical history. The tour which is run by a group of student ambassadors who have received comprehensive training from a Blue Badge Tour guide, features key sites on campus such as the Henry Wilkins Building, the Institute of Making, the Petrie Museum, the Student Centre and the Japanese Garden. The UCL Walking Tour touches on key figures and moments in the rich and radical history of UCL which have led UCL to become one of the world’s leading research and academic institutions.

Since its launch, 27 tours have taken place and over 500 people from all over the world have explored campus. The Tour has also been given to representatives from Germany’s U15 group and the CEO’s and Vice Chancellors of the Russell Group as part of their respective visits to UCL.  

Find out more: 

• UCL Walking Tours

Lockdown Cultures, with contributors from academics across the arts and humanities at UCL and beyond, was published via open access on 10 November by UCL Press. Co-edited by Stella Bruzzi and Maurice Biriotti, with Sam Caleb and Harvey Wiltshire and a foreword by UCL President and Provost Michael Spence, Lockdown Cultures provides an evocative variety of snapshot responses from members of a community of scholars to an extraordinary social phenomenon: Lockdown.

The book examines responses to lockdown through different creative lenses and from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, looking at how responses to the arts, culture, humanities and history changed through Covid. While each contributor’s approach varies, there are two dominant themes: how art and culture can help us understand the Covid crisis; and how the value of the humanities can be demonstrated by engaging with cultural products from the past.

Lockdown Cultures captures how, in the year of the pandemic, we reassessed and reengaged with our subjects. 

Find out more:  

• Faculty of Arts & Humanities
• Download Lockdown Cultures for free from UCL Press
• Lockdown Cultures launch announcement
• UCL Press 

A speculative public exhibition in the Octagon Gallery, inspired by fictional accounts of the Anthropocene, aims to generate a sense of responsibility for caring for our planet now. 

'Objects of the Misanthropocene: Unearthing futures' opened in September 2022 and is centred on the premise of a future museum that has sent objects back in time. These ‘time-travelling’ objects have been made by wide-ranging project participants across UCL and beyond, with many objects produced specifically for this exhibition. These sit alongside objects from UCL Collections and loans from the Museum of Beyond. 

'Objects of the Misanthropocene: Unearthing futures' is curated by Dean Sully and Jo Volley in collaboration with UCL Museums and Cultural Programmes. The exhibition runs until 10 February 2023.

Find out more:  

• Objects of the Misanthropocene: Unearthing futures 
• Read about the origins of this extraordinary project 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, researchers at UCL have collected nearly 1 million surveys and tens of thousands of testimonials from adults across the UK to study the psychological and social effects of COVID-19.  

UCL’s award winning COVID-19 Social Study for Outstanding Societal Impact tracks the real time impacts of the pandemic on individuals and communities across the UK. Led by Dr Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care), the project tracked more than 70,000 participants from the start of lockdown in March 2020 over the course of two years, to understand the impact of the pandemic on people’s daily lives, and how differences in age, socioeconomic background and other factors affected the impact of the pandemic on their lives.  

A fully anonymised version of the dataset is archived on the UK Data Service to support continued scientific analyses. 

Dr Fancourt said: “To be able to track the psychological and social effects of the pandemic in real time and inform government policies was an absolute privilege for us. I’m proud of the team and want to thank them, our participants and our funders for their support.” 

Watch the video

The COVID-19 Social Study – One Year On

Find out more

• UCL Faculty of Population Health Sciences
• Dr Daisy Fancourt's academic profile
• COVID-19 Social Study

Since its launch in November 2020, The London Framework has become a significant resource for UCL internally, as well as providing a vital entry point to partners and stakeholders across London.  

In the two years since The London Framework’s inception, UCL has been more impactful in how it creates purpose, connects people and celebrates its place in, of and for London. The now established London Office, based centrally within the UCL President & Provost Office, enables a strategic and targeted way of engagement, as well as amplification of UCL’s activity in and across London with our partners. 

The Framework’s goal to enhance engagement, coordinate relationships and enrich society, whilst amplifying UCL’s impact in London, remains. We strive to develop external partnerships in order to have meaningful, reciprocal long-term benefits and goals through collaboration and aligned priorities. Our well-established relationship with the London Borough of Camden and our joint Memorandum of Understanding is one fantastic example of how university-local authority relationships can flourish for the benefit of local people, communities, and place. Through UCL East, we have been establishing a strong relationship with the London Borough of Newham and we are working closely on shared priority projects to respond to grand challenges surrounding sustainability and prosperity.  

Research commissioned by the London Office in spring 2022, conducted with core partners and over 1,250 Londoners, outlined: 

• UCL was praised for being a university which goes to great lengths to understand and engage with the local community.
• The close collaboration that exists between UCL and Camden Council supports the health, wealth and wellbeing of people who live in the borough.
• Over half of Londoners (56%) of Londoners think UCL has a positive contribution to daily life in Bloomsbury.
• UCL is a significant employer creating real opportunity for young people and local residents.
• UCL's cultural impact is considered to be immense within London, and at the forefront of learning and innovation. 

Find out more: 

• Office of the Pro-Provost (London) 

In November 2021, the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering (IHE) held an eight-week exhibition at the Museum of the Home in Hoxton, called 'Tomorrow's Home: 2050'. An immersive installation where the home of the future – 30 years from now – became a reality. 

Tomorrow's Home was a UCL collaboration with The Liminal Space and funded by Royal Academy of Engineering's Ingenious programme, involving researchers, artists, designers, engineers, museum leaders and the public. Visitors were able to travel through the installation and imagine how home technology could help them in the future and decide whether it was creepy or convenient.  

Visitors filled out questionnaires designed by the IHE and the Liminal Space, in which they responded to the ideas envisioned in the Tomorrow’s Home exhibition. They also gave feedback on how they would like healthcare engineers and scientists to engage with the public.  

Out of visitors to Tomorrow’s Home:  

• 42% reported feeling worried about devices in their home collecting information about them and their health 
• 58% strongly or very strongly agreed that Tomorrow’s Home was relevant to them 
• 63% strongly or very strongly agreed they had learned something new 

The project also sparked several discussions and collaborations around the exhibition's key topics and themes. 

Find out more:  

• UCL Faculty of Engineering
• The UCL Institute of Health Engineering
• Read the full report  

In spring 2022, the Special Collections’ Outreach team set out to deliver a second iteration of The New Curators Project.  

It is well documented that the cultural heritage sector presents significant challenges for those wishing to access this field of work, who do not have financial support from elsewhere, have not gone to university and do not have any means by which to learn about the nuances and requirements of the diverse roles represented in the field.  

The New Curators Project is intended to be a proactive contribution towards tackling some of these barriers, offering 10 bursary supported places to young people who have not been to university and who have less than six months paid experience in the field. 

Building on a close partnership with Newham Heritage Month, the Outreach team raised just over £8,000 from Foundation for Future London to devise a four-month career-focused programme for young east Londoners. 

The participants attended a programme of 15 two-hour sessions across four months that provided real-world skills and competencies in an inclusive and creative way: 

They were also given the opportunity to respond as a group to a real-life brief from a local heritage festival, Newham Heritage Month, which had as its theme ‘What 2012 Means to Us’. The cohort chose to collect oral histories and create a short film. 

The project served to boost participants skills and provided them with sector-relevant knowledge and experience. The project was widely praised by the participants, with many saying that the project increased their confidence and provided useful insight into a potential career in the cultural arts sector. One participant has already started a paid Step internship at UCL. 

The project’s ongoing success has spurred the Outreach team on to begin planning 2023’s iteration, which will be based at the new UCL East campus.

Watch the video

The New Curators Project from UCL Special Collections and Newham Heritage Month

Find out more

• UCL Special Collections

In February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, UCL’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) community quickly came together to help the world understand the region that we have been researching for over a century. Experts from SSEES continue to provide extensive media comment and analysis, alongside our 'SSEES on Ukraine' hub, which contains reliable sources of news coverage and legitimate ways to help those affected.  

Our ongoing SSEESing Now series of research seminars has looked at the displacement of migrants from the war, how cultural heritage can be preserved in Ukraine, journalism in times of war, identity and architecture. The SSEES Student Society has continued since February to run an incredibly successful donation drive, organising over 1500 boxes of aid to refugees on the Ukraine borders. Most recently, in collaboration with UCL’s Office of the Vice-President (Advancement), SSEES hosted an event attended by the Provost for the UCL Ukrainian Visiting Fellows who have come to UCL under the Academic Sanctuary Fellowship Scheme.   

Meanwhile, the SSEES Library continue to enhance their excellent collections, not least because it is expected that scholars of the region will need to conduct their research outside of Russia, at locations such as SSEES, but also to support Ukrainian academics arriving under the auspices of the UCL Academic Sanctuary Fellowship Scheme. 

Find out more 

• UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies
• SSESS on Ukraine
• SSEES Society
• SSEES Library
• UCL’s Academic Sanctuary Fellowship Scheme 

As the world looks to a future away from fossil fuels and petro-chemically derived fuels and chemicals, researchers have been looking into the uses of seaweed as an alternative fuel given the significant amount of carbon locked within its structure.  

The increased levels of seaweed washing up on the shores of Mexican beaches is currently a major problem for the country. It is harms tourism, disrupts the ability of turtles to lay their eggs, and is expensive for the Mexican government to continually remove and dispose of.  

Dr Emily Kostas (UCL Biochemical Engineering) used Global Engagement Funds to collaborate with peers in Mexico to discuss biorefining seaweed to create alternative and sustainable bioproducts. Emily was keen to collaborate with Dr Héctor A. Ruiz from the Autonomous University of Coahuila as their research interests are similar, and the funds provided the means to set up a formal and structured collaboration. Due to COVID-19, a two-day online workshop and seminar took place, which saw PhD students and postdoctoral researchers with an interest in the biofinery field give presentations, discuss innovative ideas, identify research synergies, overlap, and identify new areas or project to collaborate on in the future.  

The seminar and workshop were so well received by the participants at both UCL and the Autonomous University of Coahuila, the group has decided to have a similar online session annually.  

Find out more

• UCL Engineering
• UCL Global Engagement
• Full case study on UCL Global Engagement website

A collaborative project between UCL, Vocal, the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Programme and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine resulted in the creation of ‘One for All, All for One’ is a comic and film, helping people have conversations about vaccines, community protection and working together in research. 

'One for All, All for One' is a four-chapter comic which follows young siblings, Tadala and Mayeso, as they navigate myths and misinformation, see the influence of opinion makers and social media, learn how to come to their own conclusions, and see the long-term impact of their involvement in community research projects. 

The comic – written by Nabeel Petersen, illustrated by Cape Town artist Mohamed Hassan and co-created with communities in Malawi – is published in English and Chichewa and will be shared with the public, in clinics, with researchers with governments and public health authorities in Malawi, South Africa, UK and beyond with the aim that they will inform and create further conversations around vaccines and immunisation.   

The comic follows the publication of a UCL-led study which found that the current pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) schedule in Malawi – as offered in many other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) - does not provide sustained immunity for children against the pneumococcus bacteria after their first year of life. 

The study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation found that offering a booster dose or changing the vaccination schedule available to infants in sub-Saharan Africa could greatly reduce the risk of them contracting potentially fatal diseases such as pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis.  

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One for All - Chapter 1. English.

Find out more

• UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences
• UCL Division of Infection and Immunity
• View the 'One for All and All for One' comic online (pdf)

Funding from Japanese manufacturer HORIBA has enabled UCL to recruit new academic posts focused on meeting the challenge of developing zero-emission transport.  

The company will fund the HORIBA Chair in Advanced Propulsion Technologies as well as the work of two PhD students who will conduct research with them. The posts will sit within the UCL Advanced Propulsion Lab (APL), which will be based at UCL East. 

Sustainable technologies such as electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are crucial to the future wellbeing of society and the planet. This substantial support will play a key role in allowing UCL to shape the next generation of engineers at the forefront of decarbonising the transport sector. The contribution also supports UCL’s broader goal of helping to create a more sustainable world for everyone. By working with an industrial partner, UCL is able to bring together the people, facilities and resources needed to advance knowledge, then translate this new knowledge into real-world, life-saving applications. 

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• UCL Advanced Propulsion Lab

Find out more 

• Office of the Vice-President (Advancement)
• UCL East
• Advanced Propulsion Lab

In April 2022, UCL launched a new centre that aims to provide teachers with the expertise to prepare young people for a climate-altered future. 

Based in the IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, the new centre brings together experts from across UCL to transform the UK’s approach to teaching climate change and sustainability in schools, providing research-informed professional development for teachers and school leaders across all phases, subjects and career stages. 

The importance of teacher development in the area of climate change and sustainability education is hard to overstate. This is the defining existential challenge of our time and the world that schoolchildren will encounter as adults will look different from our world today. 

Find out more 

• IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
• Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education
• Spotlight on Nicola Walshe 

UCL has been ranked seventh in the UK’s People & Planet University League 2023. 

Published by The Guardian, the People & Planet University League is a comprehensive and independent league table of 153 UK Higher Education institutions, ranked against a diverse set of environmental and ethical criteria. 

UCL received an overall score of 71.8% ranked across 14 metrics of sustainability, up from 68.6% in 2022. This meant that UCL jumped 12 places in 2022 and ranked second highest among all Russell Group universities behind only the University of Exeter, which received a score of 72.2%. 

UCL was awarded ‘First-Class’ Honours for the sixth consecutive time and received full marks in half of the 14 categories, namely: environmental policy; sustainable food; carbon management; auditing and environmental management systems; sustainability staff; staff and student engagement; and education for sustainable development. 

Find out more 

• Sustainable UCL
• Full story on UCL News

The Conference of the Parties to the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP27 for short – is an annual session bringing together heads of state and delegates from around the world to negotiate a response to the global issue of climate change.   

The 2022 summit took place in November 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. UCL was represented by 21 delegates, with academics and researchers from a whole host of different departments and areas of expertise – including economics of innovation, climate change, social inequalities, child health, decarbonisation of shipping, racism and more – helping to shape the conversation and influence policy and decisions around climate change. 

As well as UCL’s attendance at the summit, teams of academics also monitored and provided expert commentary from London, and UCL’s ongoing Generation One campaign continued, with a third season of our podcast exploring UCL’s work on climate change and reporting back from COP27. 

Listen to the podcast

• Post-COP27: What happened and was it enough?

Find out more 

• UCL staff and students attending COP27 – profiles
• Comment and analysis from UCL’s climate experts
• Generation One
• UCL Climate Hub: A community for change
• Find out more about UCL’s work on the climate crisis with our podcasts and videos
• Summary of COP27