UCL Grand Challenges 12 Days of Christmas

It’s been an eventful first year for the evolved UCL Grand Challenges programme. For our first full calendar year, what could be a better way to showcase the new programme and early progress than through a seasonal 12 Days of Christmas mash-up. I am not sure if I’ve nailed the “five gold rings” moment, and there will be some groans, but hopefully it still spreads some seasonal cheer as we round off a productive year! Here goes… “On the First Day of Christmas, my true love said to me…” 

“One programme across all Challenges”
We’ve now recruited and onboarded a small high performing team who will support all the Grand Challenge themes. They will foster collaboration across the university and externally with partners, and help make us bigger than the “sum of our parts”.  

“Two leaders appointed”
After a competitive recruitment process, Professors James Hetherington and Allison Littlejohn were appointed as the new academic leaders for the Grand Challenge of Data-Empowered Societies in September. Their first UCL community event will be in the New Year, find out more and sign-up here. 

“Three themes concluding”
The UCL Grand Challenges programme was first established in 2008, and over the last 15 years established six themes. We are now concluding and celebrating existing themes, and have published three Impact reports for the first themes to conclude: Sustainable Cities, Human Wellbeing, and Global Health.   

“Four Events A Month”
Community building is one of the key ways we help establish new connections, and bring people together within UCL and with external partners. Since the start of the Evolved Programme, we have supported 43 community-building events and sandpits for 3,670 attendees. This equates to four events a month at our current run rate, with some great feedback from attendees. 

"Five new themes”
The evolved programme has five new themes, on which we have prepared a series of videos. These are an evolution on existing ones. Three themes have now been established: Mental Health & Wellbeing, Climate Crisis, and Data-Empowered Societies. Two new themes are yet to be launched: Inequalities, and Intercultural Communications, and we will launch these over the next two academic years.   

“Six PVPs a-leading”
Each new Grand Challenge theme has dedicated academic leadership - Pro-Vice-Provosts on a job share basis - with two academics from different disciplines working together. This embeds an interdisciplinary approach in the heart of the programme. We now have six PVPs: Essi Viding and Argyris Stringaris (Mental Health & Wellbeing); Mark Maslin and Lisa Vanhala (Climate Crisis); James Hetherington and Allison Littlejohn (Data-Empowered Societies).  

“Seven Sessions a-building”
As part of our expanded remit, we are aiming to catalyse more innovation around the Grand Challenge themes, and are working with Innovation & Enterprise to develop an Innovation Lab framework which we can apply to each theme. Students have worked over seven sessions to co-create this with us, as a Learning Opportunity for Term 3. Find out more about the Inaugural Build-A-Lab Programme on our website.  

“Eight meetings a-governing”
We now have groups established for Mental Health & Wellbeing, and Climate Crisis with representation across UCL including academics and professional service staff. We also now have a VP-chaired committee to oversee the programme, and ensure we are able to report clearly on the impact of our programme.  

“Nine funding calls”
We are continuing to support challenge-led, interdisciplinarity through internal grants. Given more funding, we are now mixing open small grants calls (which we have run historically), with larger and more targeted calls for bigger and more impactful projects where we want to build institutional capability. This year, we’ve run nine funding calls (four for mental health, two for climate crisis, two for cultural understanding, and one for justice and inequality). Since the start of the Evolved Programme, we have made 90 funding awards totalling over £980k. 

"Ten months a-learning”
I’m now ten months into my role and really enjoying it. A key focus for me has been understanding what has worked well and where we could improve the Grand Challenges with help from the Bartlett’s Evaluation Exchange, who have undertaken an evaluation of the Grand Challenges programme and we will be sharing insights and more details in the New Year.

“Eleven faculties funded”
Since the start of the Evolved Programme,  we’ve received 471 applications for funding across our existing and evolved themes. This shows strong interest across the whole UCL community to engage with challenge-led interdisciplinary research, and the strong awareness that we are building on.   

“Twelve students consulting”
 As part of our expanded remit for the Grand Challenge programme, we are enhancing the educational offer. To ensure a strong student voice, we have recruited twelve students from a diverse range of courses, from almost 50 applicants, who will be co-design the educational offer so this is engaging. 

“And a Partridge in a Pear Tree!” (gusto) 
Finally, a really big thanks to all those that have supported the Grand Challenges over the last year: the academic leaders and the programme team to all the governance representatives and the students who have provided advice and input.