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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!