Strategy & Projects

Our specific aims are:

To support departments in developing and maintaining programmes that reflect the UCL Foundations of Excellence in Education and Student Experience.
To embed evidence-based pedagogical approaches within all programmes, using and learning from best practice in the sector.
To promote partnership in education design and delivery: professional services + academic staff; student + staff; early career + experienced staff; faculty + department.
To employ authentic, innovative and fair assessment methods within all programmes, ensuring diversity of assessment types.
To ensure equality of opportunity for all students, through effective education and assessment design and fostering a sense of belonging from induction until graduation.

We are expanding our strategies and projects to meet the needs of the Faculty and Departments.

Ongoing Projects:

Addressing the BAME Awarding Gap in MAPS

The UCL BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Awarding gap has shown a disparity in the number of First Class degrees awarded to BAME students. The MAPS Faculty are taking a number of actions to tackle this inequality covering two main themes:

Inclusive Assessment

A faculty task group was established to develop a position on the availability of past exam questions and model answers, to address the varying practice in different departments across the faculty.

Exam Style Study Sessions

Sign up by April 1st: Find out some of the support the MAPS faculty students can expect to receive when preparing for their exams.

Addressing the Expectation Gap

A picture of some documentation regarding equality and diversity

Addressing the Expectation Gap

Students have certain expectations of university education that are sometimes different to reality and also different to what academic staff expect of students.

Peer Feedback Project

This academic year MAPS will be piloting an improved Peer Feedback tool which uses generative AI to help scaffold the experience for students. Peer Feedback is a powerful pedagogical practice with benefits for both the giver and receiver of feedback and is well suited to large cohorts. If you'd like to learn more or join the pilot please contact the Faculty Learning Technology Lead, Dr Richard Osborne (r.osborne@ucl.ac.uk)

Resources:

UCL Education Strategy 2016-21
UCL’s five-year strategy for improving education and enhancing the student experience has been created in collaboration with the UCL community.

UCL Arena
A scheme of awards accredited by the Higher Education Academy giving teaching and support staff nationally recognised fellowships.

General Enquires
For any support or questions, please reach out to us on:
maps.students@ucl.ac.uk

See our Summer Internships interviews

Climate and Earth system insights

Madeleine's experience during her MAPS summer research internship, focusing on her research project, via analysis of satellite, fieldwork, and laboratory experimental data.

29 Jan 2026

Mapping surface-water storage changes in Bangladesh

MAPS Summer Research Internship with Mohammed Shamsudduha (Shams): Mapping the surface-water storage changes in Bangladesh using geospatial techniques.

29 Jan 2026

Probing New Physics with Data from the CERN Large Hadron Collider

Exploring physics beyond the Standard Model using CERN LHC data. UCL-built Python software powers advanced collider analysis, visualisation and high-impact publications in CERN’s global ecosystems.

29 Jan 2026

View all our internships