Progress Report 2019

UCL2034 seeks to support those thinkers now and for the future, creating a supportive home and enabling environment for our academics to excel.

Some of our achievements this year have been high-profile, attracting media headlines, such UCL’s part in the research that led to capturing direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole, in a world first. Others have been less prominent, but no less significant in their impact.

Either way, they reinforce UCL’s reputation and pave the way for new opportunities. Our academic achievements in 2019 have ensured that UCL retains its place in the global top 10: we truly are a world-leading university.

UCL President & Provost, Professor Michael Arthur

UCL Open is the first university megajournal that gives anyone with an internet connection access to ground-breaking research, free of charge.

While the current model for scholarly publishing relies mainly on subscriptions, locking out those that can’t afford them, UCL Open aims to revolutionise academic publishing by not only providing research for free but also slashing publication times and publishing peer reviewers comments to improve transparency.

UCL Open, launched by UCL press earlier this year, published its first paper this summer, titled “Global evolution and palaeographic distribution of mid-Cretaceous orbitolinids”, in UCL Open: Environment.

Research published in UCL Open: Environment showcases radical and critical thinking on real world problems and focuses on all aspects of environment-related research – from life and earth sciences to engineering and social sciences. UCL Open is still being developed and as it grows it will cover a range of multidisciplinary research subjects, transforming how knowledge is shared and applied to humanity’s problems. As UCL Open grows it will operate as both an e-journal and a preprint server.

Accepted submissions, from any grade of researcher from inside or outside UCL, will be available first as open access preprints – scholarly articles that precede publication in a peer-reviewed journal – and then undergo a fully transparent open peer review before the final article is published as an e-journal.

Dr Paul Ayris, CEO of UCL Press and founder of UCL Open, said: “We believe that an open science agenda is the best way to ensure the future of academic and scholarly pursuit. UCL Open supports this belief and ensures that knowledge is accessible to all, regardless of location or financial means.”

Links: UCL Open: Environment/UCL Press

UCL’s Constitution Unit (UCL CU) has played a crucial role in the creation of Pivotal, an independent think tank focusing on economic, social and government issues in Northern Ireland (NI).

While public policy think tanks are a prominent feature elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, no wide-ranging think tanks existed in NI.

Pivotal will not take any position on constitutional issues, as the problems tackled will largely be similar whatever NI’s constitutional status. Instead it aims to foster debate about the future and bring new voices to the fore – in particular young people, women and business – and provide a forum where citizens and a representatives from different sectors can examine issues, bring new perspectives and generate fresh ideas.

Professor Robert Hazell (UCL CU) provided much advice to help get Pivotal underway and became a founding member of the Reference Group that guides it. Alan Whysall’s (Honorary Senior Research Associate, UCL CU) report, Policy Vision and Good Government in Northern Ireland, set the wheels in motion.

The report suggested that changes were needed in the approach to policy-making for the prosperity, well-being, and stability of a power-sharing government and that establishing a think tank, independent of government and working across the fields of economic and social policy, could help.

Pivotal is supported by a broad-based coalition in NI, and an academic partnership with Queens University and Ulster University. The Government, the NI civil service and Irish government have been supportive.

Links: UCL Constitution Unit

UCL has signed a memorandum of collaboration agreed with the European Space Agency (ESA), covering a range of topics and aimed at encouraging students to study Science, Technology, Engineering and, Mathematics (STEM) subjects.

The memorandum is one of the most comprehensive to date between ESA and a university and strengthens the ties between UCL and the ESA. The memorandum of collaboration, signed by Jan Woerner, Director General of ESA, and David Price, UCL Vice-Provost (Research), covers 16 exciting themes, including satellite communications; space law and regulation; space medicine and off-world living.

UCL has a long history of working with ESA on missions to study space weather and other phenomena. UCL contributed to ESA’s Giotto, Mars Express, Venus Explorer and Rosetta missions and currently provides leadership for three of the ESA’s missions: The ARIEL mission to explore the atmospheres of 1,000 exoplanets; the SMILE mission to study space weather and its potential effects on the Earth’s technological infrastructure; and the Comet Interceptor mission.

The aim of the partnership is not only to inspire young people to study STEM subjects and create job opportunities in an ever-growing industry, but to grow the support that ESA provides for UCL’s space, and related, research programmes at UCL. The partnership will also work to gain insights not just on science and technology but on policy and governance, opening up opportunities, for both parties, for sharing and shaping a vision our future in space.

Links: UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences/European Space Agency

Through the Connected Curriculum, our framework for research-based education, we seek to offer every student the opportunity to carry out research, at every level of study, challenging them to develop independent, critical thinking, as well as the skills they need for their future careers, so that they leave us inspired and ready to take on big challenges.

Professor Anthony Smith, UCL Vice-Provost (Education & Student Affairs)

Natural Sciences student Alice Pistono presented on her dissertation research, in poster form, and won first prize at a national exhibition in the UK Houses of Parliament – Posters in Parliament.

The Posters in Parliament competition, inspired by the US Posters on the Hill event, gives more than 50 undergraduate students from universities across the UK the opportunity to present their research to legislators and policy makers in Westminster.

Alice was selected, along with a team of six second-year Biochemical Engineering students, to represent UCL after students presented their research posters to the UCL community at a lunchtime event and exhibition earlier in the year.

The judging panel was made up of academics and students who had to choose the two best posters to represent UCL from a group of 34 students from a wide range of courses.  

Alice was awarded first place, with second place awarded to the UCL Biochemical Engineering students, whose research was focused on ‘Bioethanol production from longline seaweed in United Kingdom’.

Alice’s winning poster presented her dissertation – ‘DNA degradation under shifting temperature conditions’  – which has potential for forensic science applications and investigates how changing temperatures affect the degradation of DNA.

Our students discussed their research with Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, MP for Slough and UCL alumnus. Tanmanjeet said: "As a proud alumnus of UCL, it is truly wonderful to see a team engaged in innovative research, which can truly transform our society. So many of us are truly concerned about sustainability and our environment. It is great to see such innovative research."

Links: UCL Life Sciences/UCL Engineering

Dr Anil Doshi, Lecturer in the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Group at the UCL School of Management, became UCL's 1000th Arena fellow in October 2019.

Anil achieved a nationally recognised Higher Education Academy (HEA) fellowships through UCL Arena.

UCL’s focus on teaching excellence means that gaining an HEA fellowship is a requirement for teaching staff as part of our Academic Career Framework.

More than a thousand UCL colleagues have been awarded HEA fellowships thanks to the UCL Arena Programme and there is now a total of 1,691 UCL staff with fellowships, including those who gained recognition in previous employment.

UCL Arena supports staff, from postgraduate teaching assistants to programme leaders, in their development and attainment by providing UCL's professional development pathway and offers several pathways to professional recognition. It also supports senior staff with strategic roles, and professional services staff that support teaching.

UCL Vice-Provost for Education and Student Affairs Professor Anthony Smith said: “By having colleagues who have committed to their own development and who have had their professional skills accredited, we can be sure we are giving our students a great education.”

Links: UCL Arena/Anil Doshi/UCL School of Management

The historic Bloomsbury Theatre reopened in February 2019 following a £19.8m restoration, as part of the Transforming UCL programme.

The three and a half year project involved upgrading the theatre’s 541-seat auditorium, stage, rigging system and audio-visual features so students and staff can access the state-of-the-art facilities to carry out research and put on stage productions.

The Bloomsbury theatre, managed by UCL Culture, works together with students and researchers to bring ground-breaking discoveries to the stage – not just from arts and humanities subjects but from science and technology too.

Performance Lab, UCL Culture’s experimental new programme, aims to bring research to life through theatre and help academics, students and researchers to develop and share their work with a public audience in new and innovative ways.  

“The Science of Laughter”, held in Performance Lab’s opening season, brought science and comedy together and saw neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) hook up six audience members to various monitors while they watched comedians perform their sets. Sophie then shared the results with the audience and comedians to see what they had found most funny.

While the Bloomsbury theatre allows staff and students to experiment and create outside of their academic programmes, it also continues a broader programme of events featuring feature high profile and household names.

Simon Cane, Executive Director of UCL Culture, said: “We are excited to present a refreshed approach to our programming that offers a mix of new and experimental theatre, research-driven content and high-profile and household names.”

Links: UCL Culture/UCL Arts & Humanities/UCL Brain Sciences

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, which inform and enable evidence-based policymaking.

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)

HIV is a serious global challenge with an estimated 37.9 million people with the virus across the globe and preventing transmission is vital to ending the pandemic.

UCL led an eight-year study with the University of Copenhagen of nearly 1,000 gay couples in Europe ¬– where one partner was HIV negative and the other was HIV positive – which found that men on effective HIV treatment, where the virus is suppressed, are sexually non-infectious and have no chance of infecting their partners.

The findings highlight the value of effective screening and treatment in preventing HIV transmission and ending the global pandemic. HIV is treated with antiretroviral treatment therapy (ART), with the aims of achieving undetectable levels of the HIV viral load and keeping them that way.

The ‘conclusive findings’ showed zero HIV transmissions between gay couples where the HIV positive partner had ART. The same result was found for heterosexual couples in an earlier phase of the study.

The study gained global recognition after the findings were published in the Lancet in 2019. The news is already having an incredible impact on the lives of people living with HIV, and will go some way to bringing hope to sufferers and their families and to address HIV-related stigma.

Links: UCL Institute for Global Health/UCL Population Health Sciences

Problems do not end for refugees once they escape their war-torn countries; they are often treated unfairly in the legal systems of their new homes and find it hard to fight for their rights.

While working for UCL Institute of Education, Dr Agnieszka Kubal (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies) spearheaded the development of a legal tool to help lawyers protect the rights of Syrian refugees in Russia.  

Agnieszka, a socio-legal and migration expert, worked with lawyers on an application to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of three refugees (two Syrians and one Palestinian) in Russia.

The three men involved in the case charged for working without a permit and they sentenced to a fine and deportation. Russian human rights lawyers appealed against the decision taken by a lower court that positioned the men as “migrant workers” instead of  “refugees”, and argued that the decision was taken using a rigid interpretation of Russian Law.

When the higher court rejected the appeal, Agnieszka, along with a team of lawyers, escalated the case to the European Court of Human Rights, that later declared that deportation of the three men would be a violation of their human rights and ruled that the men’s detention was unlawful and ordered their immediate release, and compensation.

This landmark case, known as LM and Others v Russia, resulted in the men being given temporary asylum in Russia and a judgment binding other European countries and barring them from removing Syrian refugees. It has now been translated into German, Croatian, Czech, Turkish and Russian and gives human rights lawyers in Europe a tool to fight for the rights of others.     

Links: Dr Agnieszka Kubal academic profile

Nearly 90% of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has been destroyed to make way for pastures, croplands and urban areas but an innovative research project co-led by a UCL academic has been helping an indigenous community restore large swathes of it.

The Atlantic Forest is fundamental to the cultural and physical survival of indigenous Guarani people, vital for the water supply of 70% of Brazil’s population and home to a large number of species unique to that area.

The project, co-led by Dr Jerome Lewis (UCL Anthropology) and Daniel Calazans Pierri (Indigenous Work Centre, Brazil), draws on Guarani ancestral agricultural knowledge, promotes the importance of indigenous people for environmental conservation and has served to protect the land, food security, and culture of the Guarani People.

The project was awarded the prestigious 2018 Newton Prize, in partnership with UCL, CTI (Brazil) and the Ashaninka people of Apiwtxa, who reclaimed a portion of their ancestral territory in the Amazon rainforest and embarked on a journey toward self-rule and sustainable development.

By drawing on this ancestral agricultural knowledge, Ashaninka tree nursery methods and establishing agroforestry techniques and seed exchanges, the team is not only supporting the preservation and restoration of the Atlantic Forest but also improving the wellbeing of Guarani communities.

The Newton-funded project, on partnership with the British Council (UK has already benefited more than 3,000 Guarani people.

Links: UCL Social & Historical Sciences

Our Public Engagement Unit, within the UCL Culture team, offers our students an education that helps them to become thoughtful, resilient and engaged citizens.

UCL Culture connects the university’s world-class researchers and collections with artists, performers and the public. They are home to the Grant Museum of Zoology, Octagon Gallery, Pathology Museum, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and UCL Art Museum, as well as Jeremy Bentham’s famous auto-icon, the Bloomsbury Theatre and Public Art.

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.

Simon Cane, Executive Director, UCL Culture

At the opening of the Student Centre in February 2019, UCL unveiled a new permanent sculpture by Turner Prize-winning artist Rachel Whiteread. Untitled (Slade Pinboard) is a cast of an historic noticeboard in the UCL Slade School of Fine Art. The piece directly connects the new building with the history and heritage of the Slade. Whiteread studied Sculpture at the Slade and was the first woman to be awarded the Turner Prize in 1993. Untitled is a significant addition to the university’s collection of work by female artists.

The Student Centre is also home to HERE NOT HERE, a new digital installation which livestreams UCL admissions data and simultaneously displays the countries that are represented and not represented at the university. This installation has been created by Jon Thomson, Professor of Fine Art at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, and Alison Craighead, artist and lecturer at Goldsmiths University, known collectively as the collaborative duo Thomson & Craighead. Together they make artworks that looks at how our perception of the world is changing in the Information Age.

Another Slade alumna, Sarah Fortais produced a bespoke installation of more than 60 hands individually cast in bronze and aluminium that reach out into space above the Wilkins Terrace. Donor Wall is a striking celebration of the individuals and organisations that support UCL’s students and make our cutting-edge research possible.

Links: UCL Culture/UCL Slade School of Fine Art/UCL Student Centre

The UCL Public Engagement Unit has funded knowledge exchange activities with communities in east London as part of UCL East – UCL’s future campus in Stratford, east London.

The Trellis programme of knowledge exchange has brought together UCL scientists and engineers with artists from or working in east London, to create four new installations on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in October 2019.

Artists and researchers worked together to create a free exhibition of sculptures, drawings and films, inspired by the history of the Lea Valley and the future of UCL East.

Located around the future site of the new campus, a new hub of discovery and co-creation, these installations offered an insight into the world of research, and a study in the creative process.

The aim of the Trellis programme is to discover how knowledge exchange activity between universities and communities can maximise impact for both parties and how partnerships can best be supported to flourish around our future campus at UCL East.

This long-term programme, supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), will continue throughout 2020 and will create opportunities to examine the shared ideas that emerge when an artist and a researcher are given space to develop their mutual interests.

Image: A participant from ‘Beyond Sight Within Grasp (Red, Yellow and Blue)’ who worked with Beyond Sight Loss, artist David Rickard and Professor Tony Kenyon on the art work.

Links: UCL Culture/Trellis Programme

UCL runs a free project for state schools in east London that gives young people the chance to learn about robotics, 3D printing and animal movement through a series of workshops delivered by UCL students and academics from four departments.

Bio-robotics and Animal Movement explores the links between robots, computer programming and animal movement and is inspired by today’s scientists and engineers who are drawing inspiration from the animal kingdom to create the next generation of robots.

The project runs over a term and includes a training session for teachers, an Animal Locomotion workshop at the Grant Museum of Zoology, a student-led tour of UCL, and a loan of a bio-inspired robotics kit with technical support from UCL students.

The project was recognised by the Ogden Trust, who have provided additional support to allow the team to extend their work with the Petchey Academy in Hackney and develop a robot inspired by the Grant Museum’s kangaroo skeleton.

Past pupils have showcased their work at a special science festival for the public, where they learnt more about STEM research directly from the UCL academics and students.

Links: UCL Culture/Bio-robotics/The Ogden Trust

Universities are ‘of their place’ – shaped by and shaping the city and country within which they sit.   As London’s Global University, UCL is in, of and for London. Like London itself, we are a diverse global community making a far-reaching contribution to our home city as well as to lives and societies internationally.

We bring staff and students from over 150 countries to work, study and play here and we nurture an active and growing alumni community of 250,000 people in more than 190 countries, all with a lifelong connection to London thanks to the transformative experience of studying at UCL.  

UCL’s London strategy is led and coordinated by Pro-Vice-Provost (London) Professor Alan Thompson, who engages with policymakers, local government, creative and cultural organisations, industry, healthcare partners, schools, colleges and HEIs, supporters, volunteers and friends (including our 50,000 London-based alumni) and many more in order to maximise the benefit to London of UCL’s research and translation, education, entrepreneurship and public engagement.

Dr Celia Caulcott, UCL Vice-Provost (Enterprise & London)

UCL and the London Borough of Camden have signed a statement of intent to extend their transformative collaborative activity in areas such as climate change, sustainability and social change.  

The new agreement will lead to a step-change in collaborative engagement between the university and the local authority. Paving the way towards deeper collaboration, the agreement will see UCL work with Camden to tackle modern urban challenges in innovative ways, potentially benefiting hundreds of thousands of people living in the Borough and beyond.

Welcoming the partnership, Professor Alan Thompson, UCL’s Pro-Vice-Provost (London), said, “The combination of a radical local authority and a radical university is perhaps unique in the UK and represents an unparalleled opportunity to create a powerful and productive partnership that not only satisfies the pioneering nature of both UCL and the London Borough of Camden – but also provides a model for engagement for London and beyond".

Jon Rowney, Executive Director Corporate Services at the London Borough of Camden added, “Like UCL, Camden has a proud, innovative spirit that throughout our history has seen communities come together to tackle problems and to bring about real social change. This is why it is only natural that our two organisations should seek ways of working more closely together.”

More people live with neurological diseases such as dementia, stroke and epilepsy, than cardiovascular disease and cancer. Neurological diseases account for around 13% of global disease prevalence and affect four million people in the UK, costing the UK Economy an estimated £112 billion.

This is why UCL is delighted to have received planning permission for a new state-of-the-art facility at 256 Gray’s Inn Road which will host the headquarters of UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI), UCL’s leading Queen Square Institute of Neurology (IoN) and become home to UCL Neuroscience.

The site is currently home to the University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Eastman Dental Hospital (EDH), the former Royal Free Hospital, the UCL Eastman Dental Institute (EDI) and the Levy Wing. Its redevelopment is a key part of Transforming UCL, a £1.25 billion ten-year programme of investment in UCL’s estate across London to develop a sustainable estate that supports the university’s continuing growth. 

As part of Transforming UCL, the UCL EDI’s teaching and research activity is moving to new facilities on UCL’s Bloomsbury and Royal Free campuses respectively, while the EDH has moved to a new building developed by UCLH.

Kevin Argent, Deputy Director of UCL Estates & Director of Estates Development, said: “With planning permission agreed, we are in a great position to move forward with the construction of another world-class research facility for UCL that will help to ensure our university estate remains one of the finest in the country.”

When it is operational in 2024, the new biomedical facility will include an NHS Neurology out-patient facility for University College London Hospitals and house over 500 neurological research scientists from IoN and UK DRI, as well as the UK DRI headquarters. 

The new Centre of Excellence for Dementia and Neurology will aim is to provide the most comprehensive, coordinated neuroscience research centre in the world from research to patient care. 

Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences and Garfield Weston Professor of Clinical Neurology and Neurorehabilitation, said:

“This world-leading facility will transform our ability to tackle the devastating global health challenge of neurological diseases such as dementia, which is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales.”

Links: UCL Brain Sciences

Cosmic coffee Secondary school students participating in an innovative project led by UCL discovered that stardust and coffee share the same molecules.

Dr Jonathan Holdship (UCL Physics & Astronomy) worked with students at Hammersmith Academy as part of the Original Research By Young Twinkle Students (ORBYTS) educational programme.

The programmes gives secondary school pupils the opportunity to work on original research linked to the Twinkle space mission – a space mission, led by UCL, that studies the light from hundreds of exoplanets to improve our understanding of their chemical composition, weather and history.

Holship was teaching the pupils to analyse molecular light data that he had collected from eight locations in space, close to four new stars. They were originally looking for evidence of sulphur, one of the most common elements in the universe, but instead they discovered acetaldehyde – a highly reactive compound commonly found in coffee beans, cheese, bread, and methanol – a simple alcohol.

The findings show that complex molecules can form in space and opening up the possibility that the building blocks of life (proteins and DNA) are abundant throughout the universe. The discovery also gives scientists more clues about the complexities of Earth and its relationship to the cosmos.

Dr Holdship said: “The students’ work identifying the light from these molecules in our telescope data has produced a fantastic dataset for anyone who wishes to study the formation of complex molecules in our galaxy".

Links: UCL Maths & Physical Sciences

We recognise that no one institution, no matter how prestigious, can solve these problems alone.

Through our Global Engagement Strategy, we’ve been building and strengthening our international partnerships. We believe that by sharing our expertise and working together, UCL academics, staff, students and their global partners can have the greatest impact.

Over the past three years, Global Engagement funding programmes have benefited more than 550 academics, with £760k of internal funding allocated leveraging more than £23.3m of external funding so far.

The UCL-University of Toronto joint funding stream has been supporting collaborations addressing challenges in the areas of cities, child health, education, and more.

The Cities partnerships Programme, part of UCL’s triple track European strategy created in response to Brexit, has funded 66 projects across all 11 faculties, working with 55 partners in Rome and Paris. It has supported over 80 events with academics across the university.

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)

UCL researchers are working on how to build a prosperous and inclusive future for the more than 70 million people forcibly displaced globally due to war, climate change and political instability.

The RELIEF Centre, based in the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, carries out research focused on measuring prosperity and inclusive growth, with particular on Lebanon which has the highest concentration per capita of refugees in the world, where there are around 1.5 million refugees.

Mass displacement can put huge pressure on infrastructure, resources and public services, such as water, transport, food and waste, affecting the quality of life of everyone in the country.

The RELIEF Centre works with partners from across UCL’s faculties, and with local partners and universities, to explores the role of education as a practical intervention that can help both displaced people and their hosts, and contribute to the creation of inclusive growth and prosperity.

The project aims to bring in the experiences of the community in Lebanon to develop practical real world solutions. Professor Henrietta Moore (Founder and Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity) said:

"By exploring diverse themes including urban design, education and skills development, public health and inclusive economic growth, we hope to co-create a new model for sustainable prosperity that can be resilient even in the face of the most extreme circumstances".

Links: UCL Bartlett

While there has been increasing research that includes neuroimaging to understand chronic pain in adults, there are only about five studies in the world focusing on chronic pain in children – but these do not include a broad range of causes of pain.

There is a need for research as the impact of pain and the types of medical conditions associated with it can differ between children and adults. UCL has teamed up with the University of Toronto to investigate chronic pain in children, with support from the UCL-University of Toronto Strategic Partner Funds, to investigate the mechanisms of paediatric chronic pain, which affects a reported 15-20% of children and young people worldwide.

UCL and the University of Toronto are uniquely placed to carry out this research as both have close links with large children’s hospitals renowned for their strong commitment to research; Great Ormond Street Hospital in the UK, and SickKids Hospital in Canada.

A year on from receiving their UCL-University of Toronto matched funding, the collaboration is going from strength to strength. Joint meetings have allowed the two institutions to share protocols and match their approaches before combining the data.

While there is more work to be done, it is hoped that the research will propel the science and change the thinking around paediatric pain.

Video: UCL and University of Toronto: Understanding chronic pain in children

Links: Population Health Sciences

NOMAD, which stands for Novel Organics Recovery using Mobile ADvanced technology, was awarded €5.5m in Horizon 2020 funding in May 2019.

The project aims to make significant contributions to a more circular resource-efficient and sustainable agro-food sector. It will gather partners from China, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania and the UK to develop a small-scale tech solution to recover nutrients from biogas effluent to formulate high performance bio-fertiliser products.

Biogas is naturally produced when organic waste, such as food scraps and animal waste, break down in an environment without oxygen (anerobically) and release a blend of gases. The effluent (liquid waste) left over from the decomposition is full of living organisms that are beneficial to plants, seeds and soils. NOMAD was started by Dr Aiduan Borrion (UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering) and addresses key production issues such as environmental and health risks, handling, variable composition and the increasing volume being produced.

Turning this effluent into bio-fertiliser products is not currently feasible for most small biofuel plants due to lack of cost-effective equipment, and having to ensure that the materials are of consistent quality and fit for purpose. But NOMAD proposes an original, disruptive and creative approach by offering a modular and mobile solution tailored to both rural and urban areas.

It was the ground-breaking nature of NOMAD’s proposed work, and its disruptive, creative approach to repurposing biogas effluent, that won NOMAD its Horizon funding.

Links: UCL Engineering

Each September, UCL Accommodation welcomes just over 7,000 new students from across the world. Most leave their home, friends, and family to study in an unfamiliar city to come to a busy, intimidating, international capital – so it’s vital that every single student feels at home at UCL.

New students can face challenges, such as: wellbeing; making friends; feeling part of a community; staying safe; overcoming social isolation and loneliness. With this in mind, we set out to create a welcome programme that fostered a sense of belonging. Working in conjunction with our students and mapping their welcome journey, we strove to find out exactly what mattered most to our students.

We are proud to say that the UCL Accommodation welcome programme has been designed by students for students. The programme includes more than 140 student ambassadors who support our Student Resident Assistant (SRA) teams and site teams to deliver a unique and fit for purpose welcome experience for our students that is consistent across all of our 26 Halls of Residence.

The programme lasts for two weeks and includes online and social media content, printed content and activities in Halls to help students settle into their new homes.

Since the introduction of the UCL Accommodation welcome programme in 2016, there has been an increase in arrival satisfaction amongst residents, which currently sits at a record of 93%.

Setting our standards in conjunction with our students, we will continue to evolve the programme to best meet the changing needs of our students in line with key enabler one of the UCL 2034 strategy.

Find out more

• UCL Accommodation

UCL welcomes, on average, 70 new members of staff each week – that’s 3,600 each year. In order to provide an appropriate new starter induction the Organisational Development (OD) team felt a new approach to induction was needed to reach as many new starters as possible, as soon as possible.

Previously, UCL held termly Provost’s Welcome events, but the OD team found that they were only managing to see around 12% of new starters within the first six months of them joining. With UCL being spread across multiple campuses and with many departments and disciplines for new members to get to grips with, 12% was not good enough.

A new induction event, Welcome to UCL, was designed with input from colleagues across the institution. The first took place in September 2019, starting off the first round of half-day monthly events.

The aim is that all new joiners will attend Welcome to UCL on day one of employment, to get staff ready for their first day in their department on day two.

By January 2020, Welcome to UCL will become a full-day event, held fortnightly. New starters will be fully prepared for their first day at work, with a comprehensive introduction to our complex organisation. They will also be able to access their login details and get a staff pass on day one.

A dedicated Welcome to UCL app is being developed, along with a departmental induction Moodle site and best practice guidelines. Discipline and service area focused induction packs are also being prepared and, from Easter term 2020, the events will be held in a dedicated Welcome Space on campus.

Staff are also being encouraged to host and deliver the “perks and quirks” section of the welcome event, so new starters can feel connected from day one, letting them hear from their future colleagues and get the inside track on UCL.

Due to generous gifts of both time and money given by over 120,000 supporters and alumni, and just three years after publicly launching in September 2016, the It’s All Academic campaign is fast closing in to raise £600m in philanthropic income for UCL.

We expect to reach and exceed that goal in 2020 – one year earlier than planned. Projects that the campaign has supported this year include a new multidisciplinary Centre for the Study of Race and Racism, which will be part of the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS).

The centre aims to promote equality and social justice, with scholarships focused on under-representation and financial need. It’s All Academic is also helping to fund a new home for UCL’s neuroscience community and HQ for the UK Dementia Research Institute, driving progress against tenacious, life-limiting global health challenges.

The philanthropic drive of this cross-UCL funding campaign will not simply end with us exceeding our goals in 2020. It’s All Academic aims to steadily increase philanthropy and engagement over the coming years to fund the disruptive thinking and groundbreaking research for which UCL has become known.

By continuing to raise philanthropic donations, of both time and money, we hope to increase our ability to influence public policy, support our students with the best academics and teaching spaces, build a community of advocates worldwide and continue to transform UCL.

Find out more

• UCL Campaign

UCL’s new staff intranet replaced the old staff gateway page in July 2019, providing staff with a one-stop shop for help with completing everyday tasks and accessing staff communications.

Before the intranet’s launch, key information for staff was found on various webpages containing potentially confusing guidance and instructions, and was spread across multiple websites.

UCL’s Digital Presence team, alongside Communications and Marketing and a cross-divisional Content Delivery and Governance group, set out to transform the fragmented information into a single intranet. Information on the new intranet is clearly signposted and that contains easy to follow guidance and relevant communications to help staff perform processes and administration tasks efficiently, leaving them more time to focus on their roles.

By using an agile approach and applying best practice design principles from the Government Digital Service (GDS) – a world leader in public sector digital innovation – the team launched the first version of the intranet as a beta earlier in the year and gathered data from users to help inform improvements to the site. The new intranet provides: a central task library with new clear step-by-step guides to help staff complete everyday tasks from booking travel to requesting parental leave; improved signposting to other staff information across UCL’s digital estate; and a new central staff communication channel – Life at UCL – to keep staff up to date with news, announcements and opportunities to get involved in the UCL community.

The intranet team will continue to build upon the intranet into 2020 and beyond.

2019 marked the halfway point of UCL’s ten-year programme – Transforming UCL – to build innovative and sustainable educational spaces, improving them for students and staff alike.

Transforming UCL aims to foster the creative thinking and technological advances made at UCL that make an impact on the biggest challenges facing us today.

The Institute of Education (IOE) has been based in its current location, 20 Bedford Way, since 1977. The largest building in UCL’s vast central London estate, the IOE houses the institute’s library and archives, teaching spaces, lecture theatres and conference facilities, student facilities, research facilities and staff offices.

To support the IOE’s growth, 20 Bedford Way is being reconfigured to deliver a modern, flexible and energy-efficient building and extend its life by 50 years.

Due to the size of the project, the reconfiguration and retrofit will be delivered in phases over several years. Phase One, which began in 2017 and was completed in May 2019, saw 2,500 square meters of space transformed into high-quality teaching and learning spaces, and new offices for more than 100 staff.

UCL Estates worked closely with IOE experts to design the new, innovative teaching spaces, from lecture theatres to seminar rooms, and have already received positive feedback from prospective students on campus tours.

The redesign has allowed for 930 teaching seats in state-of the-art rooms, meaning that all teaching can be carried out under one roof, while private study areas, an upgraded library and a new bar with an outside terrace attract students and staff from across the campus.

Consultation for Phase Two is underway and will allow for 72% of staff to move into new spaces by 2022 through further modernisation. Phase Three will see the refurbishment completed with renewed environmental and safety systems.

Link: Institute of Education

#MadeAtUCL is a campaign that showcases the impact that UCL’s ground-breaking research and discoveries have on people, lives and communities.

Leaders of the campaign gathered more than 400 stories from across the UCL community on the themes of health, technology, culture, environment, community, and justice and equality. A selection panel consisting of staff and members of the public were then tasked with whittling the list down to the top 100.

These stories are now published on a dedicated website, where visitors are encouraged to vote for their favourite. Stories include: First UK surgery in womb for babies with spina bifida, turning used coffee into clean energy and how ground-breaking research has ensured juries are fair and effective.

To date, the website has had more than 70,000 visitors and received over 13,000 votes across the 100 stories, and episode one of the accompanying #MadeAtUCL podcast series has been listened to more than 1,500 times. The series will continue until March 2020, with four more episodes.

The project has also allowed UCL to brand big as an institution. The bold new black and white “Disruptive thinking since 1826” artwork was designed to get people thinking about UCL’s impact. It has been used both on and offline, from the UCL homepage and social media to hoardings at the site of UCL’s new campus in Stratford, UCL East.

The campaign will culminate in an awards night and a hero film of the top-rated, as well as a UCL-hosted TED event featuring the researchers involved in the winning stories.