About

The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health which, together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), forms the largest concentration of children's health research in Europe.

Our vision is "Children first, always, everywhere"

Our mission is to maximise and advocate for the holistic health of all children, young people and the adults they will become, through world-class research, education and public engagement.

The academic strategy of GOS ICH is focused on five scientific research and teaching departments.

Research-based teaching

Building on the strengths provided by the research and teaching departments, we promote research-based education. We aim to attract the best basic and clinical scientists who are interested in pursuing careers in child health related disciplines. Our educational offerings are tailored to their needs. We are also offering vocational courses in paediatric specialties that are designed to attract and educate clinicians, healthcare scientists and allied health professionals in all aspects of child health and paediatrics.

Read more on our Study page.

History of GOS ICH

Read all about a brief history of the Institute of Child Health.

GOS ICH Strategy 2024-2029

As Europe’s leading centre for child health research and education, our Institute's 2024-29 Strategy focuses on:

• Developmental Biology and Cancer
• Developmental Neurosciences
• Genetics, and Genomic Medicine
• Infection, Inflammation and Immunology
• Population, Policy and Practice

Since our last strategy we have seen continued progress in all areas, despite the challenges of the global pandemic. Together with our hospital partner Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), we provide one of the highest concentrations of child health research worldwide and continue amongst the top five institutes with regard to outputs. The opening of the Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children (ZCR) in collaboration with GOSH and GOSH Charity, has been a major step forward in delivering our strategy, along with the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), the only paediatric BRC in the UK, renewed in 2022 incorporating links with Liverpool, Birmingham and Sheffield through the paediatric excellence initiative.

In addition to major advances in rare disease, our research is of relevance to the health of all children, with areas of expertise in obesity, epilepsy, infection and mental health as well as health inequalities and delivery of national trials. Two NIHR Policy Research Units; Children and Families, and Healthy Weight, led by researchers at the Institute have been recommissioned (of a total 20 in the UK, five of which are based at UCL).

We have also cemented external partnerships globally, particularly through the International Precision Child Health Partnership (IPCHiP) with Boston Children’s Hospital, SickKids Toronto and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne. 

With the development of a specific education strategy we have seen growth in existing and new programmes. We are proud to have achieved the Athena SWAN Gold award and regard equality, diversity and inclusion as integral to our values. As we look to the future, we aim to be amongst the top three for child health research and educational institutions worldwide by 2029. We look to align strategies internally and with key partners, and highlight where we wish to be over the next five years in both education and research. We will maintain our departmental structure, incorporating previous strategic initiatives of data science, stem cell biology and global health as cross cutting themes and creating a Centre for Paediatric Mental Health, as well as a new strategic focus on cancer, and have set out our ambitions and priorities for the coming period.

Read the GOS ICH Strategy

Useful links