Portico magazine online: reimagined for digital life

How do you move an auto-icon? What goes into launching a festival (while in the first year of your degree)? How do you open an independent cinema in a tower block? And how are UCL experts coming together to tackle the challenges of COVID-19? The answers to these questions come to light in the latest edition of Portico – the magazine for UCL alumni and supporters.

Read the latest issue online

A new digital experience 

Landing on doormats around the world from today, Portico magazine is delivered in a sustainable paper wrap, rather than cellophane packaging.  

What’s more, the Portico website has been redesigned with readers in mind to provide a stellar user experience. The new online home for Portico brings you the latest breakthroughs and alumni spotlights – alongside articles from previous issues – in a sleek, accessible format, wherever you are in the world, whatever device you are using. 

Stories of tenacity and triumph 

As well as keeping you in the loop with the UCL's research successes and campus news, the 2020/2021 issue of Portico magazine showcases enterprising, creative alumni from around the world.  

The stories of Sharon Tan (Bartlett 2006, 2009), manager of Singapore’s only arthouse cinema, and Bridget Minamore, Lily Bonesso and Marina Blake (English 2014), who founded Brainchild Festival during the first year of their degrees, reflect the resilience and bravery that is characteristic of UCL alumni. 

Tackling COVID-19 

This edition also features many brave, resilient UCL people meeting the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic head-on; staff, students and alumni working around the clock to tackle the immediate crisis as well as its long-term ramifications.

Inspired by the words of Jeremy Bentham, “Create all the happiness you are able to create, remove all the misery you are able to remove”, an interview with Dr Daisy Fancourt reveals the ways in which people are supporting their neighbours during the pandemic. 

While UCL researchers work at pace to deliver treatments for COVID-19 and assess its long-term impact on society, attention is also with our students at this difficult time. Many of them are experiencing severe, unforeseen financial hardship right now. With studies, work, and home lives turned upside down by the pandemic, they have concerns around the new academic year, graduation, and longer-term career prospects.  

We have a duty as an institution, and a community, to ensure that no student facing hardship because of the pandemic has to make difficult decisions about continuing their studies. We have put support measures in place to meet students’ urgent needs over the coming years, including providing emergency assistance for any UCL student in immediate financial difficulty, as well as a dedicated Widening Participation Bursaries programme. These efforts will support those students who are likely to be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19: students from low-income families, with a disability, with experience of care or homelessness, or from BAME backgrounds. 

You, our alumni and friends, are an important part of the UCL family. By making a donation today, no matter the size, you will have an immediate impact on UCL’s students – restoring their peace of mind and giving them the courage to continue their studies.