Progress Report 2017
Reporting on progress made in 2016-17 towards UCL 2034 strategy for each of the principal themes and key enablers.
From forging partnerships to build global prosperity, to engaging families in London with our research, the UCL community has carried out wide-ranging activity over the 2016-17 academic year, in support of UCL 2034, our 20-year strategy.
Watch UCL’s highlights for 2016-17 below:
UCL 2034 is about supporting them every step of the way and providing a nurturing environment for them to explore fresh, innovative ideas about how to push the boundaries of cross-disciplinary research.
Some of these academic leaders are household names, while other, equally brilliant thinkers are known primarily within their field.
Either way, they magnify UCL’s reputation and attract new opportunities. A case in point is UCL’s selection as the headquarters and hub of research activity for the new £250 million UK Dementia Research Institute.
Through achievements like these, UCL moves from being world-class to truly world-leading.
UCL President & Provost, Professor Michael Arthur
Remains of microorganisms at least 3,770 million years old have been discovered by an international team led by UCL scientists, providing direct evidence of one of the oldest life forms on Earth.
The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the Built Environment and our Faculty of Engineering Sciences have joined forces to create Here East, a site in east London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Programmes taught here, such as the Engineering and Architectural Design MEng will blend different disciplines, including architecture, computer science, real estate and robotics to build a society fit for the future.
Footage courtesy of Lightgeist.
Our Connected Curriculum seeks to bring together the twin roles of a university – generating knowledge and inspiring learning – to offer every student the opportunity to carry out research, at every level of study, challenging them to develop independent, critical thinking, so that they are qualified and inspired to make an impact on society.
Professor Anthony Smith, UCL Vice-Provost (Education & Student Affairs)
Our Liberating the Curriculum initiative challenges us to make teaching and learning at UCL richer and more inclusive. UCL medical students Hope Chow and Jessie Low worked on a mapping project to explore how UCL Medical School could include marginalized voices in the curriculum, enabling students to become better doctors in the future.
After Ecuador requested an advisory opinion on Julian Assange’s claim to asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, a group of UCL Laws students submitted a brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and were invited to Costa Rica to contribute to the oral phase of the proceedings.
As an academic community we value the connections we make: across disciplines, across countries, and across communities. We believe that when we come together we can generate unique insights and world-leading research into complex global problems.
The challenges we face in the future – from climate change to disease and inequality – will not be confined to one country alone, and cannot be solved in isolation. Through inspiring research leaders and nurturing cross-disciplinary research, including through the Research Domains and Grand Challenges, we will strive to help future generations live fair, healthy and rewarding lives.
Professor David Price, UCL Vice-Provost (Research)
A trial led by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL found that a low-cost package of drugs can save the lives of people who start HIV treatment late.
Watch the video
Footage courtesy of Picturing Health.
Sea Hero Quest is a game designed to help dementia research.
By 2050, 130 million people will be living with dementia, and there are no treatments that tackle the diseases that cause dementia.
Researchers at UCL and UEA are using data gathered from Sea Hero Quest to better understand how we can treat dementia, and with the support of Deutsche Telekom they are now launching a virtual reality version.
Our Public Engagement Unit celebrates its 10th anniversary next year and, through its pioneering work, we know that the more diverse the voices that we listen to and engage with, the more we will thrive as a university.
We offer our students an education that helps them to become thoughtful, resilient and engaged citizens. With our help, our student volunteers have set up and run numerous community projects – from teaching British politics and democracy to primary school students to attending asylum hearings in support of unaccompanied young Albanians.
Through our continuing outreach work, we will ensure that a UCL education is open to all those who have the talent to study here, irrespective of background.
Rex Knight, UCL Vice-Provost (Operations)
Muso is a project in which academia, opera and museums come together to explore the power of collections. It began at the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology.
Footage courtesy of TEAfilms
The UK’s first-ever live reading of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four took place as part of our free, week-long Festival of Culture. It was organised by UCL and the Orwell Foundation.
Universities are 'of their place', shaped by the city and country in which they are, and in turn shaping and influencing these. UCL, as London’s Global University, absolutely reflects this. We are in London, an integral part of the city physically, architecturally, culturally, economically. We are of London, reflecting its strengths and challenges, with London core to our identity and outlook, and – with staff and students from over 150 countries – global in reach.
And as a world-leading, comprehensive, research-intensive university we have outstanding opportunities to be 'for' London. Vital is partnership, a great strength of UCL. Working with our many partners from amongst London’s communities, leaders, businesses and organisations, we have the opportunity to unlock outstanding outcomes and overcome challenges for this great city we share.
Dr Celia Caulcott, UCL Vice-Provost (Enterprise & London)
Bat calls are too high for the human ear, so UCL researchers have slowed down some of these recordings of bats in London for you to hear. As part of a project called Nature Smart Cities, they’ve created a bat monitoring system in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The real-time data the system collects will help answer questions about what makes a park good or bad for wildlife.
Matt Majewski, Business Analytics (with specialisation in Computer Science) MSc (2016) and Jacob Wedderburn-Day, Economics MSc (2016) were studying at UCL when they founded Stasher, a cheap alternative to left luggage, with their friend, Anthony Collias.
UCL Innovation and Enterprise provided them with a headquarters in central London and now they handle over 40,000 bags a year.
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Through our Global Engagement Strategy we’ve been collaborating with UCL academics, staff, students and global partners to benefit communities around the world.
Being genuinely globally engaged entails a responsibility to remain true to UCL’s open and inclusive roots and to respond to developments on the world stage. As one small example of that, I’m proud to say that in response to the refugee crisis in Europe, we launched a campaign to raise money for three organisations that support academics and students whose lives, research and education are at risk in their home countries. And in response to the UK’s recent vote to leave the European Union, we committed ourselves to intensifying our efforts to ensure that our diverse partnerships around the world continue to thrive.
The further examples below are a sample of the world-class, creative and interdisciplinary work taking place across UCL, which we are delighted to facilitate and support.
Dame Nicola Brewer, UCL Vice-Provost (International)
A very high proportion of refugees never get the chance to have a formal education. UCL Student Support and Wellbeing teamed up with Students’ Union UCL and the charity Student Action for Refugees, to raise awareness and champion refugee education.
Footage courtesy of Filmbright
UCLSat is currently orbiting the Earth. It’s a small satellite designed and built by UCL engineers and scientists as part of QB50, a European Union-funded international mission to collect new data about the earth’s thermosphere.
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UCL Student Support and Wellbeing (SSW) have organised visits by Nurture Dogs, to help our students during stressful times like exams. Research shows that interacting with dogs can contribute to positive overall wellbeing, and the sight of them on campus had the added benefit of encouraging students to come speak to SSW staff and find out more about the support services on offer.
This is just one of a number of fun, small-scale activities we’ve organised to promote student wellbeing, including cycling for a smoothie, problem-solving booths, advice-sharing boards, crafting and letter-writing sessions and student challenges.
UCL believes wellbeing is as important for our students as their studies.
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In July 2017, Rex Knight, Vice-Provost (Operations) and Professor Anthony Smith, Vice-Provost (Education & Student Affairs), sponsored the My ID campaign to significantly improve the quality and quantity of personal data for UCL staff.
Accurate demographic data helps us identify the structural and attitudinal barriers that certain groups face in the workplace. It assists us in taking targeted action to remove them and make UCL a fairer and more inclusive employer.
Yet we knew that our data in some areas could be better and without improvements, we would not be able to gain a true picture of our staff make up, or prioritise positive action where it may be needed most.
As a result of the campaign, nearly 3,000 members of staff have updated their data and we can now look towards developing initiatives to improve staff experience.
UCL have raised £352million towards a target of £600m for It’s All Academic, our ambitious philanthropy and engagement campaign.
That’s more than half our target, the campaign supports four themes – health, students, London and disruptive thinking - with a particular focus on finding new treatments and cures for dementia, transforming student experiences and creating a new UCL East campus.
This investment will help ideas and discoveries that are shaping the future, improving lives and having a significant impact on London and the wider world.
The Campaign for UCL is also building a global community of students and alumni: who have given 76,000 volunteering hours towards the target of 250,000, representing an increasingly engaged worldwide community of alumni supporting each other and UCL.
Watch the video: It's All Academic: The Campaign for UCL
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Our professional services have an essential role in UCL’s continued success and must be empowered and developed.
We need to get our underlying processes and systems working better to support academic excellence and offer more rewarding and fulfilling careers in professional services.
This is why we are transforming our professional services.
Through the TOPS programme our Communities of Practice initiative has started to bring together colleagues who work in similar roles but who are based in different parts of UCL. These communities are sharing ideas, simplifying processes and offering better career development opportunities.
We have already launched four Communities of Practice – uniting communications and marketing colleagues who work in digital, events, internal communications and student recruitment. An early example of what the communities will achieve comes from the Student Recruitment Community of Practice, which has reduced the number of steps taken from 43 to 12 for departments/faculties to produce and send an email via the Radius CRM to prospective students.
The Wilkins Terrace, an innovative new outdoor space located in the middle of our Bloomsbury campus, formally opened in September 2017. The UCL community have been putting the flexible Terrace space to good use, using it as an informal place to meet, chat, eat and study as well as a space for dancing and exercising!
With this new space our community has the opportunity to host film screenings, exhibitions and fashion shows in the future. The new walk way connecting Gordon Street and the new Wilkins Terrace has also been well received and is helping everyone get across campus quickly.
We also launched the major refurbishment and extension of the Refectory in the undercroft of the Wilkins Building, with 324 new seats and a diverse range of carefully developed food options. It offers staff and students a light-filled, collaborative meeting and eating space.
Andrew Grainger, Director of UCL Estates, said: “This is a significant milestone for our Transforming UCL programme delivering outdoor space at the heart of our Bloomsbury campus within an existing Grade I listed building. It is a fabulous space developed for our staff, students and visitors and will benefit and inspire our entire academic community for generations to come.”
Find out more about the Wilkins Terrace or take a look at some photos on Flickr.
UCL’s Communications and Marketing team have been developing the @ucl Instagram account to create an engaging and positive channel to communicate with key audiences – current and prospective students and alumni. The channel fosters the UCL community through sharing highlights of campus life, student activities and achievements and providing support and information for students in an informal and creative way.
Students have been inspired to engage with UCL Instagram through the #loveUCL competition, which has been running successfully for the past four years. The competition encourages students to share their shots of UCL life using the hashtag #loveUCL and awards eight monthly prize winners and one overall winner for each academic year. The competition has amplified UCL’s student voice and created an abundance of user-generated content that authentically shows campus life from every angle. At the end of 2017, there were 7,300 posts on Instagram using #loveUCL.
UCL Instagram is a popular channel with posts receiving high engagement. Between October and December 2017, the average ‘likes’ per image were close to 2,000. Followers of @ucl Instagram are rapidly growing and have almost doubled since September 2016 to more than 41,000 in December 2017. Instagram has become one of UCL’s top performing social channels.
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