What is healthcare engineering?

Healthcare engineering is the field of applying maths and science to solve healthcare problems. This covers an incredibly broad range of activities – from developing 3D-printing prosthetic limbs through to using artificial intelligence to predict cancer.

Our mission is to develop digital and medical technologies that transform lives across the globe.

Learn more about our research projects.

What does the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering do?

For us, it’s all about overcoming the big challenges – the ones that matter most. They drive our research and, quite frankly, get us into work every morning. We want to help patients with spinal injuries walk again. We want people to avoid stroke and paralysis. We want to hold back the visual deterioration that comes with age. We want to help cure cancer.

We support healthcare engineering research at the university through activities like:

• creating networking opportunities and connecting researchers from across the university and our partner hospitals 
• facilitating meaningful knowledge exchange between academics, healthcare professionals, industry, patients and members of the public
• providing training and development opportunities for students and early-stage researchers
• identifying and supporting strategic funded research opportunities
• pump-priming projects 
• hosting events that develop interdisciplinary skills and knowledge
• guiding researchers through UCL’s research development pipeline, from foundational research to clinical practice

Our management structure

The Insitute of Healthcare Engineering is made up of a core team consisting of:

• Director, Professor Qasim Rafiq 
• Communications and Impact Manager, Alice Hardy
• Marketing and Community Manager, Ferdouse Akhter

We then have six delivery groups with a total of around 15 active members from across UCL. The delivery groups are responsible for ‘delivering’ our Institute’s strategic objectives: