Imperial College London

Imperial College London
Motto Scientia imperii decus et tutamen (Latin)
Motto in English
 Knowledge is the adornment and protection of the Empire
Established 1907 (Royal Charter)[1]
Type Public research university
Endowment £96.7 million[2]
Rector Alice Gast[3]
Visitor The Lord President of the Council ex officio
Administrative staff
 7,240[2]
Students 14,735[2]
Undergraduates 8,931[2]
Postgraduates 5,804[2]
Location London, United Kingdom
Colours
                                        
Affiliations
Website imperial.ac.uk

Imperial College London (legally The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine)[1] is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom.[4] Imperial's origins lie with Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who championed creating a centre for science, technology and the arts in the area around South Kensington, which came to be known as "Albertopolis" and also comprises the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and Science Museum.[5][6] Imperial has grown through mergers, including with St Mary's Hospital Medical School (in 1988), the National Heart and Lung Institute (in 1995) and Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (in 1997). Queen Elizabeth II opened the recently established Imperial College Business School building in 2004.[7] A former constituent college of the University of London, it became independent during its centennial celebration in 2007.[8]

Imperial is organised into four faculties - science, engineering, medicine and business - within which there are more than 40 departments, institutes and research centres. The main campus is located in Kensington with additional campuses in Chelsea, Hammersmith, Paddington, Berkshire and in Singapore.[9][10] Imperial is a major centre for biomedical research and is part of the Imperial College Healthcare academic health science centre.[11] It is a member of numerous university associations including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, European University Association, G5, Association of MBAs, League of European Research Universities and Russell Group and forms part of the "golden triangle" of leading English universities.

Imperial is consistently included among the best universities in the world, ranking 2nd in the QS World University Rankings (2014) and 9th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2014).[12][13] According to a corporate study in The New York Times its graduates are among the 10 most valued in the world.[14][15] Imperial's faculty and alumni include 15 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 70 Fellows of the Royal Society, 82 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.[16]

History

The Great Exhibition

The Imperial Institute

The Great Exhibition was organised by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Fuller and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Great Exhibition made a surplus of £186,000 used in creating an area in the South of Kensington celebrating the encouragement of the arts, industry, and science. Albert insisted the Great Exhibition surplus should be used as a home for culture and education for everyone. The vision built the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Geological Museum, Royal College of Science, Royal College of Art, Royal School of Mines, Royal School of Music, Royal College of Organists, Royal School of Needlework, Royal Geographical Society, Institute of Recorded Sound, Royal Horticulatural Gardens, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute.[17][18] Several Royal Colleges and the Imperial Institute merged to form what is now Imperial College London.[5][19][20]

Royal College of Chemistry

The Royal College of Chemistry was established by private subscription in 1845 as there was a growing awareness that practical aspects of the experimental sciences were not well taught and that in the United Kingdom the teaching of chemistry in particular had fallen behind that in Germany. As a result of a movement earlier in the decade, many politicians donated funds to establish the college, including Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Robert Peel. It was also supported by Prince Albert, who persuaded August Wilhelm von Hofmann to be the first professor.

William Henry Perkin studied and worked at the college under von Hofmann, but resigned his position after discovering the first synthetic dye, mauveine, in 1856. Perkin's discovery was prompted by his work with von Hofmann on the substance aniline, derived from coal tar, and it was this breakthrough which sparked the synthetic dye industry, a boom which some historians have labelled the second chemical revolution.[21] His contribution led to the creation of the Perkin Medal, an award given annually by the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in the United States for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development". It is considered the highest honour given in the industrial chemical industry.[22]

Royal School of Mines

The Natural History Museum

The Royal School of Mines was established by Sir Henry de la Beche in 1851, developing from the Museum of Economic Geology, a collection of minerals, maps and mining equipment.[17] He created a school which laid the foundations for the teaching of science in the country, and which has its legacy today at Imperial. Prince Albert was a patron and supporter of the later developments in science teaching, which led to the Royal College of Chemistry becoming part of the Royal School of Mines, to the creation of the Royal College of Science and eventually to these institutions becoming part of his plan for South Kensington being an educational region.[17]

Royal College of Science

The Royal College of Science was established in 1881. The main objective was to support the training of science teachers and to develop teaching in other science subjects alongside the Royal School of Mines earth sciences specialities.[17]

1907 to 2000

In 1907, the newly established Board of Education found that greater capacity for higher technical education was needed and a proposal to merge the City and Guilds College, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science was approved and passed, creating The Imperial College of Science and Technology as a constituent college of the University of London. Imperial's Royal Charter, granted by Edward VII, was officially signed on 8 July 1907. The main campus of Imperial College was constructed beside the buildings of the Imperial Institute in South Kensington.

The Royal School of Mines building

City and Guilds College was founded in 1876 from a meeting of 16 of the City of London's livery companies for the Advancement of Technical Education (CGLI), which aimed to improve the training of craftsmen, technicians, technologists, and engineers. The two main objectives were to create a Central Institution in London and to conduct a system of qualifying examinations in technical subjects.[1] Faced with their continuing inability to find a substantial site, the Companies were eventually persuaded by the Secretary of the Science and Art Department, General Sir John Donnelly (who was also a Royal Engineer) to found their institution on the eighty-seven acre (350,000 m²) site at South Kensington bought by the 1851 Exhibition Commissioners (for GBP 342,500) for 'purposes of art and science' in perpetuity. The latter two colleges were incorporated by Royal Charter into the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the CGLI Central Technical College was renamed the City and Guilds College in 1907,[2] but not incorporated into Imperial College until 1910.

The medical schools of Charing Cross Hospital, Westminster Hospital and St Mary's Hospital were opened in 1823, 1834 and 1854 respectively.[17]

Imperial acquired Silwood Park in 1947, to provide a site for research and teaching in those aspects of biology not well suited for the main London campus. Felix, Imperial's student newspaper, was launched on 9 December 1949. On 29 January 1950, the government announced that it was intended that Imperial should expand to meet the scientific and technological challenges of the 20th century and a major expansion of the College followed over the next decade. In 1959 the Wolfson Foundation donated £350,000 for the establishment of a new Biochemistry Department. A special relationship between Imperial and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi was established in 1963.

The Department of Management Science was created in 1971 and the Associated Studies Department was established in 1972. The Humanities Department was opened in 1980, formed from the Associated Studies and History of Science departments.

In 1988 Imperial merged with St Mary's Hospital Medical School, becoming The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. In 1995 Imperial launched its own academic publishing house, Imperial College Press, in partnership with World Scientific.[23] Imperial merged with the National Heart and Lung Institute in 1995 and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) and the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1997. In the same year the Imperial College School of Medicine was formally established and all of the property of Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School were transferred to Imperial as the result of the Imperial College Act 1997. In 1998 the Sir Alexander Fleming Building was opened to provide purpose-built headquarters for the College's medical and biomedical research.

2000 to 2010

Victoria and Albert Museum

In 2000 Imperial merged with both the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and Wye College, the University of London's agricultural college in Wye, Kent. It initially agreed to keep Agricultural Sciences at Wye, but closed them in 2004.[24] The origins of the later acquired College of St Gregory and St Martin at Wye, was originally founded by John Kempe, the Archbishop of York, in 1447 as a seminary, with an agricultural college being established at Wye in 1894 after the removal of the seminary.[25]

In December 2005, Imperial announced a science park programme at the Wye campus, with extensive housing;[26] however, this was abandoned in September 2006 following complaints that the proposal infringed on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and that the true scale of the scheme, which could have raised £110m for the College, was known to Kent and Ashford Councils and their consultants but concealed from the public.[24] One commentator observed that Imperial's scheme reflected "the state of democracy in Kent, the transformation of a renowned scientific college into a grasping, highly aggressive, neo-corporate institution, and the defence of the status of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – throughout England, not just Wye – against rampant greed backed by the connivance of two important local authorities.[27] Wye College campus was finally closed in September 2009.

In May 2001 a new faculty structure was established, with all departments being assigned to the Faculties of Engineering, Medicine, Physical Sciences and Life Sciences. A merger with University College London was proposed in October 2002, but was abandoned a month later following protests from staff over potential redundancies.[28]

In 2003 Imperial was granted degree-awarding powers in its own right by the Privy Council. The London Centre for Nanotechnology was established in the same year as a joint venture between UCL and Imperial College London.[29][30] In 2004 the Tanaka Business School (now named the Imperial College Business School) and a new Main Entrance on Exhibition Road were opened by The Queen. The UK Energy Research Centre was also established in 2004 and opened its headquarters at Imperial College. In November 2005 the Faculties of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences merged to become the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown discusses the global financial crisis with MBA students

On 9 December 2005, Imperial College announced that it would commence negotiations to secede from the University of London.[31] Imperial College became fully independent of the University of London in July 2007[32][33] and the first students to register for an Imperial College degree were postgraduates beginning their course in October 2007, with the first undergraduates enrolling for an Imperial degree in October 2008.

2010 to present

In May 2012 Imperial, UCL and the IT company Intel announced the establishment of the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities, a London-based institute for research into the future of cities.[34][35]

In August 2012 it was announced that Imperial would be the lead institution for the MRC-NIHR Phenome Centre, a new research centre for personalised medicine to be based at GlaxoSmithKline's research and development facility in Harlow, Essex, inheriting the anti-doping facilities used to test samples during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.[36][37]

As of October 2015, the newly formed Dyson School of Design Engineering will be offering a course in design engineering following a £12m donation by the James Dyson Foundation.[38]

Campuses

South Kensington

The Queen's Tower

Imperial's main campus is located in the South Kensington area of central London. It is situated in an area of South Kensington, known as Albertopolis, which has a high concentration of cultural and academic institutions, including the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal College of Music, the Royal College of Art, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Albert Hall. The expansion of the South Kensington campus in the 1950s & 1960s absorbed the site of the former Imperial Institute, designed by Thomas Collcutt, of which only the 287 foot (87 m) high Queen's Tower remains among the more modern buildings.[39][40]

Recent major projects include the Imperial College Business School, the Ethos sports centre, the Southside hall of residence and the Eastside hall of residence. Current major projects include the reconstruction of the south-eastern quadrant of the South Kensington campus.

The Imperial Institute was created in 1887 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee with the intention of it being a scientific research institution exploring and developing the raw materials of the Empire countries. The building was constructed in South Kensington between 1888 and 1893. Its central tower (the Queen's Tower) survives. There were smaller towers at the east and west end, a library, laboratories, conference rooms and exhibition galleries with gardens at the rear.[17]

Other existing campuses

In addition to its original South Kensington campus Imperial has six other campuses across London and a campus in the village of Sunninghill near Ascot:

Charing Cross Campus, Hammersmith
A medical teaching and research campus based around Charing Cross Hospital. Facilities include a campus library, cafe and fitness gym.

Chelsea and Westminster Campus
A medical teaching and research campus based around Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Facilities include a campus library.

Prince Harry opening the Royal British Legion Centre for Blast Studies

Hammersmith Campus, East Acton
A medical teaching and research campus based around Hammersmith Hospital. Facilities include a campus library, catering outlets and sports facilities.

Royal Brompton Campus, Chelsea
A medical teaching and research campus based around the Royal Brompton Hospital. Facilities include a campus library.

St Mary's Campus, Paddington
A medical teaching and research campus based around St. Mary's Hospital. Facilities include a campus library and sports facilities.

Silwood Park
A postgraduate campus of Imperial located 25 miles west of central London in the village of Sunninghill near Ascot in Berkshire. The campus includes a centre for research and teaching in ecology, evolution, and conservation set in 100 ha of parkland where ecological field experiments are conducted.

Imperial West

A second major campus is currently under construction in the White City area of London. Covering some 25 acres, Imperial West will house new research facilities, space for spin-off companies as well as student accommodation. The site is expected to cost in excess of £3 billion to complete.

Wye

Imperial acquired Wye College in 2000, which is set in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It was rapidly dismantled, causing controversy, particularly a plan for substantial redevelopment in the area, with adverse environmental implications. A local campaign eventually secured the overthrow of the scheme, following which the Wye campus was closed in September 2009.[27] The Wye campus, some of it dating back to the 15th century, is currently vacant and available for sale or rent.

Administration and organisation

Imperial's entrance on Exhibition Road

Faculties

Imperial's research and teaching is organised within a network of faculties and academic departments. Imperial currently has the following three constituent faculties:

The Centre For Co-Curricular Studies provides elective subjects and language courses outside the field of science for students in the other faculties and departments. Students are encouraged to take these classes either for credit or in their own time, and in some departments this is mandatory.[41] Courses exist in a wide range of topics including philosophy, ethics in science and technology, history, modern literature and drama, art in the 20th century, film studies.[42] Language courses are available in French, German, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin Chinese.[43] The Centre For Co-Curricular Studies is home to the Science Communication Unit[44] which offers Master's degrees in Science Communication and Science Media Production for science graduates.

Finances

In the financial year ended 31 July 2013, Imperial had a total net income of £822.0 million (2011/12 – £765.2 million) and total expenditure of £754.9 million (2011/12 – £702.0 million).[2] Key sources of income included £329.5 million from research grants and contracts (2011/12 – £313.9 million), £186.3 million from academic fees and support grants (2011/12 – £163.1 million), £168.9 million from Funding Council grants (2011/12 – £172.4 million) and £12.5 million from endowment and investment income (2011/12 – £8.1 million).[2] During the 2012/13 financial year Imperial had a capital expenditure of £124 million (2011/12 – £152 million).[2]

At 31 July 2013 Imperial had a total endowment of £96.7 million and total net assets of £1,002 million.[2]

In 2011/12, Imperial had the fifth-highest total income of any British university and the second-highest income from research grants and contracts (after the University of Oxford).[45]

Academics

Rankings

2014-15 World Rankings
World Europe
QS World University Ranking[12] 2 1
THE World University Ranking[13] 9 3
US News World University Ranking[46] 12 3

Global

Imperial is among the top universities of the world and consistently included in the top 10 globally. Alongside the University of Cambridge, Imperial is tied for 1st outside the US, and 2nd in the world in the 2015 QS World University Rankings.[12] Imperial is ranked 3rd outside the US, and 9th in the world in the 2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[47] Imperial is ranked 3rd outside the US, and 12th in the world in the inaugural 2015 U.S. News & World Report Global Ranking.[46][48]

Global Subject

In the QS World University Ranking Subject Tables of 2010 it is ranked 5th in Europe for clinical medicine and pharmacy,[49] 3rd in Europe for engineering/technology and computer sciences,[50] 5th in Europe for natural sciences and mathematics[51] and 2nd in Europe for physics.[52][53] In the subject tables it is ranked 2nd in Europe for engineering and technology,[54] 3rd in Europe for life sciences and medicine[55] and 4th in Europe for natural sciences.[56]

In Times Higher Education World University Subject tables it is ranked 2nd in Europe, 3rd in the world for clinical, pre-clinical and health,[57] 4th in Europe, 9th in the world for engineering and technology,[58] 3rd in Europe, 9th in the world for life sciences[59] and 4th in Europe, 13th in the world for physical sciences.[60]

Businessweek ranks Imperial 1st in entrepreneurship outside the US.[61][62]

U.S. News and World Report ranks Imperial 1st in engineering in Europe.[63]

National

Imperial is also consistently one of the highest ranked universities in the UK university rankings and is 3rd overall in the 2011 Complete University Guide, Sunday Times University Guide and Times Good University Guide and 7th in the 2011 Guardian University Guide. In the Complete University Guide subject tables Imperial is currently ranked 3rd for biological sciences, 2nd for chemical engineering, 1st for civil engineering, 2nd for computer science and 3rd for medicine.[64] In the Guardian University Guide subject tables it is currently ranked 2nd for chemical engineering, 1st for civil engineering, 3rd for materials and mineral engineering and 3rd for mechanical engineering.[65]

Career

The Faculty Building

Furthermore, in terms of job prospects, as of 2014 the average starting salary of an Imperial graduate is £31,304, the highest of any UK university.[66] In 2009, the Sunday Times ranked Computing graduates from Imperial as earning the second highest average starting salary in the UK, £34,960,[67] after graduation, over all universities and courses.[68] In 2012, the New York Times ranked Imperial College as one of the top 10 most-welcomed universities by the global job market.[69] In May 2014, the university was voted highest in the UK for Job Prospects by students voting in the Whatuni Student Choice Awards[70]

Research

Imperial had a total income from research grants and contracts in 2010/11 of £299 million, the second-highest of any British university in that year.[71] Imperial was awarded a total of £114 million in grants from UK research councils for the 2013/14 financial year, the highest amount of any British university.[72]

The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise returned 26% of the 1225 staff submitted as being world-leading (4*) and a further 47% as being internationally excellent (3*).[73][74] The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise also showed five subjects – Pure Mathematics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering – were assessed to be the best in terms of the proportion of internationally recognised research quality.[75]

Imperial submitted a total of 1,257 staff across 14 units of assessment to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment.[76] In the REF results 46% of Imperial's submitted research was classified as 4*, 44% as 3*, 9% as 2* and 1% as 1*, giving an overall GPA of 3.36.[77] In rankings produced by Times Higher Education based upon the REF results Imperial was ranked 2nd overall for GPA and 8th for "research power" (compared to 6th and 7th respectively in the equivalent rankings for the RAE 2008).[77]

Imperial has a dedicated technology transfer company known as Imperial Innovations. Imperial actively encourages its staff to commercialise their research and as a result has given rise to a proportionally large number of spin-out companies based on academic research.

Imperial, in conducting research on Parkinson's disease and Multiple Sclerosis, hosts the largest brain bank in the world consisting of 296 brains donated by individuals affected with either of these diseases.[78][79]

Medicine

St. Mary's Hospital
Main articles: Imperial College Faculty of Medicine and Imperial College Healthcare

The Imperial Faculty of Medicine is one of the largest faculties of medicine in the UK. It was formed through mergers between Imperial and the St Mary's, Charing Cross and Westminster, and Royal Postgraduate medical schools and has six teaching hospitals. It accepts more than 300 undergraduate medical students per year and has around 321 taught and 700 research full-time equivalent postgraduate students.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust was formed on 1 October 2007 by the merger of Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust (Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital and Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital) and St Mary's NHS Trust (St. Mary's Hospital and Western Eye Hospital) with Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine.[80] It is an academic health science centre and manages five hospitals: Charing Cross Hospital, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, St Mary's Hospital, and Western Eye Hospital. The Trust is currently the largest in the UK and has an annual turnover of £800 million, treating more than a million patients a year.

Other (non-academic health science centres) hospitals affiliated with Imperial College include Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, West Middlesex University Hospital, Hillingdon Hospital, Mount Vernon Hospital, Harefield Hospital, Ealing Hospital, Central Middlesex Hospital, Northwick Park Hospital, St. Mark's Hospital, St Charles' Hospital and St Peter's Hospital.[81]

Admissions

Imperial is amongst the most selective universities in the UK.[82] In 2009, the acceptance rate for undergraduates was 15.3% and postgraduates was 19.5%.[83][84][84]

Along with University College London and the University of Cambridge, Imperial was one of the first universities in the UK to make use of the A* grade at A Level for admissions, with engineering and physics courses requiring an A* in Mathematics.[85][86]

Imperial announced in 2008 that it was exploring the possibility of entrance exams to help it select the most suitable students.[87] Since then, Imperial has been reviewing and piloting a range of assessment approaches, such as subject-specific tests, skill tests and motivation-based tests as part of enhanced interviews. The Faculty of Medicine already uses the BMAT as part of the selection process.

Controversies

In 2003, it was reported that one third of female academics "believe that discrimination or bullying by managers has held back their careers".[88] It was said then that "A spokesman for Imperial said the college was acting on the recommendations and had already made changes". Nevertheless, allegations of bullying have continued: in 2007, concerns were raised about the methods that were being used to fire people in the Faculty of Medicine.[89][90] New President of Imperial College, Alice Gast says she sees bright lights in the horizon for female careers at Imperial College London.

In September 2014, Professor Stefan Grimm, of the Department of Medicine, was found dead after being threatened with dismissal for failure to raise enough grant money.[91] The College made its first public announcement of his death on 4 December 2014.[92] Grimm's last email accused his employers of bullying by demanding that he should get grants worth at least £200,000 per year.[93][94] His last email[93] was viewed more than 100,000 times in the first four days after it was posted. The College has announced an internal inquiry into Stefan Grimm's death. The inquest on his death has not yet reported.

Student life

Royal School of Mines

Student body

For the 2007–08 academic year, Imperial had a total full-time student body of 12,319, consisting of 8,741 undergraduate students and 3,578 postgraduates. In addition there were 1,036 postgraduate part-time students. 39% of all full-time students come from outside the European Union, around 13% of the International students have Chinese nationality.[84]

Imperial's male:female ratio for undergraduate students is uneven at approximately 64:36 overall[84] and 5:1 or higher in some engineering courses. However, medicine has an approximate 2:1 ratio with biology degrees tending to be higher.[95]

Imperial College Union

Imperial College Union, the students' union at Imperial College, is run by five full-time sabbatical officers elected from the student body for a tenure of one year, and a number of permanent members of staff. The Union is given a large subvention by the university, much of which is spent on maintaining around 300 clubs, projects and societies.[96] Examples of notable student groups and projects are Project Nepal which sends Imperial College students to work on educational development programmes in rural Nepal[97] and the El Salvador Project, a construction based project in Central America.[98] The Union also hosts sports-related clubs such as Imperial College Boat Club and Imperial College Gliding Club.

The Union operates on two sites; Beit Quad, South Kensington and Reynold's, Hammersmith.

Facilities

Sports facilities at Imperial's London campuses include four gyms, two swimming pools and two sports halls.[99] Imperial has additional sports facilities at the Teddington and Harlington sports grounds.

On the South Kensington campus, there are a total of six music practice rooms which consist of upright pianos for usage by people of any grade, and grand pianos which are exclusively for people who have achieved Grade 8 or above.[100]

There are two student bars on the South Kensington campus, one at the Imperial College Union and one at Eastside.[101]

Student activities

Hammersmith

Imperial College Radio
Imperial College Radio (or ICRadio) was founded in November 1975 with the intention of broadcasting to the student halls of residence from a studio under Southside, actually commencing broadcasts in late 1976. It now broadcasts from the West Basement of Beit Quad over the internet www.icradio.com[102] and, since 2004, on 1134 AM in Wye.

Imperial College TV
ICTV (formerly STOIC (Student Television of Imperial College)) is Imperial College Union's TV station, founded in 1969 and operated from a small TV studio in the Electrical Engineering block. The department had bought an early AMPEX Type A 1-inch videotape recorder and this was used to produce an occasional short news programme which was then played to students by simply moving the VTR and a monitor into a common room. A cable link to the Southside halls of residence was laid in a tunnel under Exhibition Road in 1972. Besides the news, early productions included a film of the Queen opening what was then called College Block and interview programmes with DJ Mike Raven, Richard O'Brian and Monty Python producer Ian MacNaughton. The society was renamed to ICTV for the start of the 2014/15 academic year.

In 2006 it was named Best Broadcaster at NaSTA and also won awards for Best On-Screen Male and Best On-Screen Female. It now broadcasts from studios in the specially built media centre, refurbished in 2014, at Imperial College Union to the Junior Common Room and occasionally FiveSixEight. Programmes are also available to watch on their website.[103]

Felix Newspaper
Published weekly, Felix is the free student newspaper of Imperial. It aims to be independent of both the College itself and the Student Union. The editor is elected annually from the student body; the editorship is a full-time, sabbatical position. In 2006 and 2008, Felix won the Guardian Student Media Awards for Student newspaper of the year and Student journalist of the year.

Imperial College Boat Club
The Imperial College Boat Club was founded on 12 December 1919. The Gold medal winning GB 8+ at the 2000 Sydney Olympics had been based at Imperial College's recently refurbished boathouse and included 3 alumni of the college along with their coach Martin McElroy.The club has been highly successful, with many wins at Henley Royal Regatta including most recently in 2013 with victory in The Prince Albert Challenge Cup event. The club has been home to numerous National Squad oarsmen and women and is open to all rowers not just students of Imperial College London.

Student housing

Beit Hall

Imperial College owns and manages twenty halls of residence in Inner London, Ealing, Ascot and Wye. Over three thousand rooms are available, guaranteeing first year undergraduates a place in College residences.

The majority of halls offer single or twin accommodation with some rooms having en suite facilities. Study bedrooms are provided with basic furniture and with access to shared kitchens and bathrooms. The majority of rooms come with internet access and access to the Imperial network. Most of them are considered among the newest student halls at London universities.

Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year undergraduates, since they are granted a room once they have selected Imperial College as their firm offer at UCAS. The majority of older students and postgraduates find accommodation in the private sector, help for which is provided by the College private housing office. However a handful of students may continue to live in halls in later years if they take the position of a "hall senior".

Some students are also selected to live in International Students House, London.

A decision by the university in early 2013 to relocate a substantial proportion of student accommodation from the campus area to North Acton prompted strong protests from students.[104][105] This echoes earlier (2012) controversy surrounding the closure of affordable postgraduate student accommodation at the College's 'Clayponds Village' in Ealing, West London, in favour of an arrangement with a commercial provider.[106]

List of Halls of Residence:

  • South Kensington Village
    • Beit Hall
    • Garden Hall
    • Weeks Hall
    • Eastside
      • Linstead Hall
      • Gabor Hall
      • Wilkinson Hall
    • Southside
      • Falmouth Hall
      • Selkirk Hall
      • Tizard Hall
      • Keogh Hall
  • Evelyn Gardens
    • Bernard Sunley Hall
    • Fisher Hall
    • Holbein Hall
    • Southwell Hall
    • Willis Jackson Hall
  • Wilson House, London
  • Boathouse
  • Orient House
  • Parsons House
  • Pembridge Hall
  • Xenia

Notable alumni, faculty and staff

Nobel laureates: Sir Alexander Fleming, Sir Ernst Boris Chain, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley, Rodney Robert Porter, Abdus Salam, Sir George Paget Thomson, Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett, Dennis Gabor, Peter Higgs, Sir Norman Haworth, Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, Sir Derek Barton, Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson and Sir George Porter.

Academic alumni and faculty: biologist, Thomas Huxley, co-discoverer of Higgs Boson, Sir Tom Kibble, Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, Sir Tejinder Virdee, invisibility cloak, Sir John Pendry, organic chemist, Sir Christopher Kelk Ingold, discovered first synthetic organic chemical dye mauveine, Sir William Henry Perkin, theory of chemical valency, Sir Edward Frankland, discovered the chemical element thallium, Sir William Crookes, optics, Harold Hopkins, mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, Fields Medallist, Simon Donaldson and astro-physicist, Meghnad Saha.

Non-academic alumni: author, H. G. Wells, McLaren and Ferrari Chief Designer, Nicholas Tombazis, Rolls Royce CEO, Ralph Robins, rock band Queen guitarist, Brian May, Singapore Airlines CEO, Chew Choon Seng, Prime Minister of New Zealand, Julius Vogel, Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Teo Chee Hean, Chief Medical Officer for England, Queen's honorary physician, Sir Liam Donaldson and head physician to the Queen, Huw Thomas.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 PJGILL. "Charitable status". Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 "Annual Report and Accounts 2013–14" (PDF). Imperial College London. p. 5. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  3. ↑ "'Collaboration essential', says Alice Gast on becoming Imperial's 16th President". Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  4. ↑ HJBUT. "Strategy". Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "History of Imperial College". https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/robertson.pdf''.
  6. ↑ "Ted Talks Imperial College London HIstory". http://tedxalbertopolis.com/albertopolis''.
  7. ↑ "History | Imperial College Business School". .imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
  8. ↑ "University guide 2015: Imperial College London". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "Imperial College – Centenary website – Did you know". Imperial.ac.uk. 6 November 2006. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  10. ↑ "Faculties & Departments". Imperial College London. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
  11. ↑ "REF research". https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/ref/''.
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