UCL was established in 1826 to open up education in England for the first time to students of any race, class or religion. Its founding principles of academic excellence and research aimed at addressing real-world problems, inform the university’s ethos to this day.
More than 6,000 academic and research staff are dedicated to research and teaching of the highest standards. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 29 former academics and graduates and UCL ranks consistently amongst the most-cited universities in the world.
As London’s Global University, UCL has the opportunity and the obligation to use the breadth of its intellectual expertise to help resolve some of the world’s major problems. We are seizing this opportunity to develop an innovative cross-disciplinary research agenda, which will enable us to understand and address significant issues in their full complexity. Our vision extends beyond the common understanding of what a university is; we aim not just to generate knowledge, but to deliver a culture of wisdom – that is, an academic environment committed to the judicious application of knowledge for the good of humanity.
It’s getting hot in the city, and our overheated cities are only going to get hotter still as more people pile in and development and energy use intensifies. But planting away the problem could be a surprisingly…
The HS2 project survives. Despite ferocious attacks, the initial High Speed Rail (Preparation) Act 2013 was passed in November and the Hybrid Bill – where the real arguments are debated – is now going…
In The Importance of Teaching white paper in 2010, the government committed itself to developing a “self-improving system of schools”. Four years on there is a risk that a two-tier system will emerge in…
C.P. Snow’s pessimistic view of “two cultures” – the arts and the sciences at war with each other, glowering across no man’s land, entrenched in their embattled fortress of true expression (as each saw…
In the past, when infections were the dominant form of disease and death, and humans didn’t understand how they spread, an epidemic ended when enough people had died that there were no more potential victims…
Influenza infection is very common – about one in five of us are infected each year. But, surprisingly, the majority of infections don’t cause any illness. In a study published in The Lancet Respiratory…
Let’s say Martians land on the Earth and wish to understand more about humans. Someone hands them a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare and says: “When you understand what’s in there, you will understand…
When residents from the tiny town of Bulga won a three-year court battle to stop Rio Tinto expanding an open-cut coalmine beside them, it was hailed as a victory for David over Goliath. Yet the type of…
A new app is about to come on the market with promises to dramatically increase the speed at which you read. Spritz is a text streaming technology that allows you to read a sentence, one word at a time…
Women are twice as likely than men to contract HIV during intercourse and according to the authors of a new US study, women who contract HIV while pregnant may be especially vulnerable and more likely…
Universities Australia has announced an agreement with business groups to collaborate on vocational training to improve the employability of graduates. Universities Australia chair Sandra Harding made…
We’ve been told to get used to flooding. Whether or not the latest floods were caused by climate change, this winter has reminded us that floods are and will continue to be a fact of human existence, especially…
In Uganda, the President Yoweri Museveni has signed into law a bill which will punish same-sex relations with fourteen years’ imprisonment. Next to this, Vladimir Putin’s support of the 2013 Russian legislation…
The idea of the “green economy” goes in and out of fashion, not least because it is rarely defined and frequently misunderstood. Partly this is because different groups find ways to exaggerate the aspects…
Scientists have developed a new chemical they claim can restore light sensitivity in blind mice. The compound, called DENAQ, acts as a “photoswitch” that can turn on light-sensitive cells in retinas when…
A genetic predisposition to weight gain and obesity in later life can in part be explained by a lack of feeling full after eating, according to a new study in JAMA Paediatrics. Although there has been…
Health professionals and parents appear to disagree about what determines children’s food preferences. While the former often take the view that healthy foods and the absence of “junk food” in the home…
It is beyond doubt that our emissions contribute to climate change. And climate change is making us sick. Sea–level rises, changes to the severity of monsoon seasons and rainfall, flooding, droughts and…
Adults in England have a very unequal spread of basic skills – some are highly skilled while others do poorly at literacy and numeracy tests. It’s likely that entrenched inequality in our education system…
Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at RUSI; Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations; Deputy Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL