UCL's health vision
Our 2026 discussion paper sets out UCL's capabilities and ambitions for health over the next 10+ years.
Our success depends on our position at the heart of one of Europe’s largest academic-health ecosystems. Through this paper, we’re inviting all our stakeholders – NHS partners, policymakers, UCL colleagues, funders, industry and international partners – to review, and contribute to, our ideas.
Our vision is to prevent ill health, intercept disease before it takes hold, and improve outcomes when it does.
We are asking you to challenge our thinking, identify gaps, help us prioritise, and suggest how new collaborations could advance our vision. Your responses will help us to shape UCL’s Health Vision, our broader Academic Strategy, and how we bring them to life. By working together, we can speed up the path from discovery to patient benefit, prevent more disease, improve more treatments and strengthen the health system for everyone.
We’ll be engaging with our partners and stakeholders over the coming months to gather diverse input on the vision set out in this paper.
Join the discussion
We are engaging with our partners and stakeholders over the coming months to gather diverse input on the vision set out in this paper. If you’d like to contribute, please email our Health Partnerships Team.
Health Strategy
Click to email. healthstrategy@ucl.ac.ukHelping to shape the way forward
UCL has built world-leading capability across multiple areas of health research. Our work spans all 11 faculties and is supported by partnerships with multiple NHS trusts.
In cancer, breakthroughs include immunotherapy, lung cancer screening and precision therapies. In neuroscience, we’ve pioneered work in dementia prevention, Huntington’s disease, stroke treatment and Parkinson’s diagnosis. In eye health, our gene therapies are restoring sight in children. And we currently conduct 49% of the UK’s academic advanced therapy trials, with our research leading to breakthrough gene therapies now in clinical use.
Alongside this vital work, UCL is also a global leader in population health, and well placed to support the NHS 10-Year Health Plan’s three shifts – from analogue to digital, sickness to prevention, and hospital to community.
UCL plays a leading role in shaping policy on key issues, supporting a world-class environment for education, research and innovation. Our latest briefing on NHS Secure Data Environments highlights how poor integration with university computing infrastructure risks limiting AI-driven health research and the translation of NHS data into real-world impact.
We’ve also been at the forefront of shaping national and international discussion on prevention and health equity, through high-profile research and policy initiatives such as the Marmot Reviews. We also host five of the NIHR’s Policy Research Units and five WHO Collaborating Centres to translate our health research into national and global policy.
Strategic opportunities
We’re exploring strategic opportunities where we believe focused investment over the next 10-20 years could achieve transformative impact.
These new opportunities address major challenges facing health systems worldwide: ageing populations, rising costs of care, workforce shortages, the potential of the digital revolution and embrace the multidisciplinary nature of truly effective health research.
Computational healthcare institute
A cross-faculty institute, to help us coordinate and translate AI, data science and high-performance computing into routine NHS care
Disease interception
Progressing our work on lung cancer, brain cancer, foetal medicine and dementia to detect and intervene in pre-disease processes to prevent illness before it takes hold
Advanced Genomic Therapies Centre
supercharging UCL’s world-leading clinical translation capabilities to solve major health challenges and accelerate the translational pathway from discovery to clinical success and commercialisation
Integrated solutions to health challenges
Drawing on UCL’s interdisciplinary strengths across all 11 faculties, through our Health of the Public initiative.
Supporting the NHS and extending UCL’s health expertise globally
We’re also keen to support the NHS in new ways to build the skilled workforce it needs. And we’re looking for ways to extend UCL’s health expertise globally, working with UCL departments to identify new educational opportunities.
Four key initiatives being explored include:
- A new School of Health Professional Education for allied health professionals, nurses, midwives and healthcare scientists
- The opportunity to launch a modern dental undergraduate programme, addressing ‘dental deserts’
- International growth and greater global impact through partnerships with Tsinghua University and a Dubai hub
- Expanded health consulting in international medical and health education, health economics, and health systems.
UCL’s Academic Strategy
This discussion paper will inform the development of UCL’s academic strategy and next strategic plan. The Academic Strategy will set out our academic vision for the next ten years and beyond, to build on our current academic excellence, reach and impact and ensure that we remain a world-leading university.