In 1851, theGreat Exhibition was organised as an exhibition of culture andindustry byHenry Cole and by Prince Albert, husband of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom,Queen Victoria. An enormously popular and financial success, proceeds from the Great Exhibition were designated to develop an area for cultural and scientific advancement inSouth Kensington.[21] Within the next six years theVictoria and Albert Museum andScience Museum had opened, joined by new facilities in 1871 for the Royal College of Chemistry, and in 1881 the opening of the Royal School of Mines andNatural History Museum.[22]
At the start of the 20th century, there was a concern that Great Britain was falling behind Germany in scientific and technical education. A departmental committee was set up at theBoard of Education in 1904, to look into the future of theRoyal College of Science. A report released in 1906 called for the establishment of an institution unifying the Royal College of Science and theRoyal School of Mines, as well as – if an agreement could be reached with the City and Guilds of London Institute – its Central Technical College.[25][26]On 8 July 1907,Edward VII granted aRoyal Charter establishing the Imperial College of Science and Technology. This incorporated the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science. It also made provisions for the City and Guilds College to join once conditions regarding its governance were met, as well as for Imperial to become a college of theUniversity of London.[27] The college joined the University of London on 22 July 1908, with the City and Guilds College joining in 1910.[12][28] The main campus of Imperial College was constructed beside the buildings of theImperial Institute, the new building for the Royal College of Science having opened across from it in 1906, and the foundation stone for the Royal School of Mines building being laid by KingEdward VII in July 1909.[25]
As students at Imperial had to study separately for London degrees, in January 1919, students and alumni voted for a petition to make Imperial a university with its own degree awarding powers, independent of the University of London.[29][30] In response, the University of London changed its regulations in 1925 so that the courses taught only at Imperial would be examined by the university, enabling students to gain a Bachelor of Science.[31] In October 1945,George VI andQueen Elizabeth visited Imperial to commemorate the centenary of the Royal College of Chemistry, which was the oldest of the institutions that united to form Imperial College. "Commemoration Day", named after this visit, is held every October as the university's main graduation ceremony.[32][33] The college also acquired abiology field station atSilwood Park nearAscot, Berkshire in 1947[34]
The City & Guilds Building
FollowingWorld War II, there was again concern that Britain was falling behind in science – this time to the United States. The Percy Report of 1945 and Barlow Committee in 1946 called for a "BritishMIT"-equivalent, backed by influential scientists as politicians of the time, includingLord Cherwell, SirLawrence Bragg and SirEdward Appleton.[35][36] TheUniversity Grants Committee strongly opposed however,[35] and so a compromise was reached in 1953, where Imperial would remain within the university but double in size over the following ten years.[37][38] The expansion led to a number of new buildings being erected. These included the Hill building in 1957 and the Physics building in 1960, and the completion of the East Quadrangle, built in four stages between 1959 and 1965. The building work also meant the demolition of the City and Guilds College building in 1962–63, and the Imperial Institute's building by 1967.[39] Opposition from theRoyal Fine Arts Commission and others meant thatQueen's Tower was retained, with work carried out between 1966 and 1968 to make it free standing.[40] New laboratories for biochemistry, established with the support of a £350,000 grant from theWolfson Foundation, were opened by theQueen in 1965.[41][42]
In 2003, Imperial was granted degree-awarding powers in its own right by thePrivy Council. In 2004, theImperial Business School and a new main college entrance on Exhibition Road were opened.[45][46] TheUK Energy Research Centre was also established in 2004 and opened its headquarters at Imperial. On 9 December 2005, Imperial announced that it would commence negotiations to secede from the University of London.[47] Imperial became fully independent of the University of London in July 2007.[48][49][50]
In April 2011, Imperial andKing's College London joined the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation as partners with a commitment of £40 million each to the project. The centre was later renamed theFrancis Crick Institute and opened on 9 November 2016. It is the largest single biomedical laboratory in Europe. The college began moving into the new White City campus in 2016, with the launching of the Innovation Hub.[51] This was followed by the opening of the Molecular Sciences Research Hub for theDepartment of Chemistry, officially opened byMayor of London,Sadiq Khan in 2019.[52]
In 2014,Stefan Grimm, of the Department of Medicine, was found dead after being told that he was "struggling to fulfil the metrics" of his professorial post.[53][54][55] The college announced an internal inquiry into his death and found that the performance metrics for his position were unreasonable, but new metrics would be needed to replace them.[56]
The campus has many restaurants and cafés run by the college, and contains much of the college's student accommodation, including the Prince's Garden Halls, and Beit Hall, home to thecollege union, which runs student pubs, a nightclub, and a cinema on site. To the north, within easy walking distance of the college, areKensington Gardens andHyde Park, with green spaces and sports facilities used by many of the student clubs.
Sir Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Research Hub at white City
Imperial has a new second major campus inWhite City providing a platform forinnovation andentrepreneurship. This campus was built on land previously owned by BBC.[57]
The hub houses research facilities, postgraduate accommodation, as well as a commercialisation space called I-HUB.[58][59][60]
The campus is home to the Scale Space andincubator, Invention Rooms, a collegehackerspace and community outreach centre.[61]
The White City campus also includes a biomedical centre funded by a donation from alumnus SirMichael Uren.[62][63][64]
Imperial revealed plans in 2025 to build an AI campus at White City, centred on a new 12-storey building designed byAllies and Morrison, to be constructed between 2028 and 2029.[65][66]
Silwood Park is a postgraduate campus of Imperial in the village of Sunninghill nearAscot in Berkshire. The Silwood Park campus remains a centre for research and teaching in ecology, evolution, and conservation. It is set in 100 hectares of parkland used for ecological field experiments.
Imperial has teaching hospitals across London which are used by theSchool of Medicine for undergraduate clinical teaching and medical research. All are based around college-affiliated hospitals, and also provide catering and sport facilities. College libraries are located on each campus, including the Fleming library at St Mary's.[67]
Prince's Gardens surrounded by college halls of residence
Imperial College owns and manages ten halls of residence inInner London,Acton andAscot, Berkshire. Over three thousand rooms are available, with first year undergraduates guaranteed a place in one of the six main college residences (subject to certain requirements). The majority of halls offer single or twin accommodation with some rooms having en suite facilities. Bedrooms are provided with basic furniture and with access to shared kitchens and bathrooms. All rooms come with internet access and access to the Imperial network.[68]
Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year undergraduates. 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", and places are available for a small number of returning students in three small halls.[69] The accommodation in Ascot is only for postgraduate students based at the Silwood Park site.[70]
Imperial is organised into four faculties: the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and the Imperial Business School. As of 2024,[update] the academic departments are:[71]
Imperial hosts centres to promote inter-disciplinary work under the titles of Global Challenge institutes, Imperial Centres of Excellence and Imperial Networks of Excellence. It also participates as a partner in a number of national institutes.[72]
The Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication operates as Imperial College London's adult education centre, offering evening class courses in the arts, humanities, languages and sciences.[73] The university also houses two academic centres offering teaching to undergraduate and postgraduate students in subjects outside of science, technology and medicine. The academic centres are the:
The council is the governing body of Imperial. The council consists of between 19 and 27 members, with an independent chair andex officio members being the president, the provost, the chief operating officer, the president of Imperial College Union, and four senior staff members. There are also up to four further staff members (comprising one member elected by the academic staff, one further appointed member of academic staff and two members of the professional services staff), up to one further representative of Imperial College Union, and between nine and 13 other independent members, with the proviso that the independent members (including the chair) must comprise the majority.[74][75] Thepresident is the highest academic official and chief executive of Imperial College London.[76] The position has been held byHugh Brady, since August 2022[update].[77] As of 2024,[update] theprovost isIan Walmsley and the chair is Vindi Banga.[74]
The college's endowment is sub-divided into three distinct portfolios:
Unitised Scheme – a unit trust vehicle for the college, Faculties and Departments to invest endowments and unfettered income to produce returns for the long term
Non-Core Property – a portfolio containing around 120 operational and developmental properties which the college has determined are not core to the academic mission
Strategic Asset Investments – containing the college's shareholding inImperial Innovations and other restricted equity holdings.[78]
In the financial year ending 31 July 2024, Imperial had a total income of £1.309 billion (2022/23 – £1.256 billion) and total expenditure of £1.051 billion (2022/23 – £1.235 billion).[79] Key sources of income included £507.5 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2022/23 – £452.1 million), £165.4 million from funding body grants (2022/23 – £183.3 million), £396.2 million from research grants and contracts (2022/23 – £383.1 million), £28.8 million from investment income (2022/23 – £24.1 million) and £35.5 million from donations and endowments (2022/23 – £51.5 million).[79]
At year end, Imperial had endowments of £235.2 million (2022/23 – £220.1 million) and total net assets of £2.082 billion (2022/23 – £1.792 billion). It holds theeighth-largest endowment of any university in the UK.[79]
In the 2021Research Excellence Framework, Imperial's research profile was assessed as 66 per cent world class (4*) 30 per cent internationally important (3*) and 3 per cent internationally recognised (2*), with insignificant quantities of research in lower categories. This led to Imperial being ranked first in the UK on GPA and ninth for research power byTimes Higher Education, with a GPA of 3.63 and research power 47.3 per cent of the top-ranked University of Oxford.[83]
In January 2018, the mathematics department of Imperial and theFrench National Centre for Scientific Research launched an "international joint research unit" (unité mixte internationale; UMI) at Imperial, known as UMI Abraham de Moivre after theFrench mathematician, focused on unsolved problems and bridging British and French scientific communities.[89] In October 2018, Imperial College launched the Imperial Cancer Research UK Center, a research collaboration that aims to find innovative ways to improve the precision of cancer treatments, inaugurated byJoe Biden as part of his Biden Cancer Initiative.[90][91]
Neil Ferguson's 16 March 2020 report entitled "Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand" was described in aNew York Times article as the coronavirus "report that jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to action".[92][93] Since 18 May, Imperial College's Dr. Samir Bhatt advised thestate of New York for its reopening plan.[94] Thegovernor of New York,Andrew Cuomo, said at the time that "the Imperial College model, as we've been following this for weeks, was the best, most accurate model."[94]
In the academic year 2021/22, the ratio of applicants to admissions was 9:1 for undergraduates and 7.7:1 for postgraduates.[101] The university gave offers of admission to 30.1% of its undergraduate applicants in 2022, the 7th lowest offer rate across the country.[102] The undergraduate courses with the highest ratios of applicants to admissions werecomputing (19.2:1), mathematics (14.6:1) and mechanical engineering (11.2:1).[101]
The postgraduate courses with the highest ratios of applicants to admissions were computing (21:1), mathematics (17.9:1), and electrical engineering (14:1).[101] Imperial is among the most international universities in the United Kingdom,[103][104] with 50% of students from the UK, 16% of students from the EU, and 34% of students from outside the UK or EU.[103][105][106] The student body is 39% female and 61% male.[106]
In 2024/25, the student body consisted of 22,525 students, composed of 12,080 undergraduates and 10,440 postgraduate students.[4] 36.5% of Imperial's undergraduates areprivately educated, the fourth highest proportion amongst mainstream British universities.[104]
The Imperial Faculty of Medicine was formed through mergers between Imperial and the St Mary's, Charing Cross and Westminster, and Royal Postgraduate medical schools and has sixteaching 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 is known for itsentrepreneurial culture, which blends business studies with the sciences.[121] It provides facilities such as the enterprise lab, which one in eight students use and which reports a 79 per cent startup survival rate.[121] Reflecting this, the 2023QS MBA Rankings by career specialisation ranked its MBA programme third worldwide for entrepreneurship.[122]
Imperial's focus on practical subjects –engineering,science,medicine andbusiness – along with its emphasis on entrepreneurship and industry placements, have given it a strong ranking for employability:[121] in the 2026Guardian University Guide, Imperial received the highest score in the highly skilled employment or further studies component,[113]
For the 2024/25 academic year, Imperial had a total full-time student body of 19,400, consisting of 10,475 undergraduate students and 8,925 postgraduates.[123] 50.7% of the student body is from outside of the UK.[124] 32% of all full-time students came from outside theEuropean Union in 2013–14,[125] and around 13% of the International students had Chinese nationality in 2007–08.[126] Imperial's male to female ratio for undergraduate students is uneven at approximately 64:36 overall,[126] and 5:1 or higher in some engineering courses. However, medicine has an approximate 1:1 ratio with biology degrees tending to be higher.[127]
Other notable student groups and projects includeProject Nepal, which sends Imperial College students to work on educational development programmes in rural Nepal,[131] and theEl Salvador Project, a construction based project in Central America.[132]
There are two student bars on the South Kensington campus, one at theImperial College Union and one at Eastside.[133] There are a number of pubs and bars on campus and also surrounding the campus, which become a popular social activity for Imperial's students. ThePewter tankard collection at Imperial College Union is the largest in Europe, with the majority of clubs and societies having tankards associated with their clubs.[134]
Sports at Imperial are organised by Imperial Athletes, run as a collaboration between Imperial College Union and the university's Move Imperial programme. This sports over 90 sports clubs, many of which participate inBritish Universities and Colleges Sport leagues or the London University Sports Leagues.[137] The Imperial Leagues offerintramural sports at the university within the Imperial Athletes organisation.[138]
Sports facilities at Imperial's London campuses include four gyms, including the main Ethos gym at the South Kensington Campus, two swimming pools and two sports halls.[139] Imperial has additional sports facilities at the Heston 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.[140]
The annualBottle Match, a varsityrugby fixture between Imperial'sRoyal School of Mines and the University of Exeter'sCamborne School of Mines, is the second oldest in the world. The first recorded match took place in 1902. The Bottle Match is traditionally held in February, normally on the third weekend of the month. The match reflects a long-standing rivalry between the two mining schools.[141]
Imperial's Exploration Board was established in 1955 and funds student expeditions as well as recognising them as official Imperial projects. It also maintains an archive of past expeditions.[142]
While many Imperial student activities are inclusive and run by the Imperial College Union, Imperial is also home to several highly exclusive social clubs often referred to as "tie clubs" or "drinking societies". Historically centered around students from theconstituent colleges, the three most prominent clubs are The 22s, The Links, and The Chaps. These invite-only societies, dominated by alumni who were active in the student union and sports (particularly rugby) maintain strong connections to the university. Their existence has been a source of controversy within the student community, with critics pointing out their "elitist" and often secretive nature. For instance, the historically all-male The 22s and accusations of "tokenism" against The Links have led to calls for Imperial College Union to enforce stricter equal opportunities standards, especially since members of these tie clubs have traditionally held highly influential positions within the union's sabbatical and governance structures.[143]
Imperial has a tradition of mascotry, a unique and historically intense custom of rivalry, theft, and ransom between the student bodies of its founding constituent unions. This practice involves two main categories ofmascots. First, there are violable mascots, the ceremonial objects that are traditionally the targets of theft and ransom demands, often for RAG (Raising and Giving) charity. Examples include theRoyal College of Science's seven-foot-long thermometer Theta and theCity and Guilds Union's heavy bronze Spanner and Bolt. This tradition of competitive stealing is still ongoing, though it has seen a reduction in activity in recent years[when?] and is subject to official Imperial College Union rules to prevent violence or property damage. Second, the four famous antique motorised vehicles such as the 1916 Dennis N-Type Fire Engine Jezebel and the 1902 car Boanerges are classified as inviolate (protected from theft). These motorised mascots are meticulously maintained and regularly paraded by student motor clubs at ceremonial and public events, ensuring that the engineering and historical pride of the constituent unions remains an active part of student life.[144]
Interior of theHoly Trinity Church in South Kensington, the venue for many Blyth Centre public performances
The Blyth Centre for Music and Visual Arts offers resources such as music scholarships, art classes and practice rooms. The centre organises the university's regular series of public performances, many of which take place off-campus at the nearbyHoly Trinity Church on Prince Consort Road.[145] These run during term time and feature both professional artists and Imperial students, including Ash Music Scholars[146] and ensembles such as the Imperial College Chamber Choir.[147] The programme also includes a lunchtime concert series[148] and formal collegeevensong services.[149]
Each yearImperial Business School organises a major annual social event, often referred to as the "Winter Party" or "Winter Ball," at the adjacentNatural History Museum. This exclusive, after-hours event transforms the museum's Hintze Hall into a grand venue for hundreds of students to celebrate and socialise under the iconic 25-meterblue whale skeleton.[151]
Imperial is a key partner in the Great Exhibition Road Festival, a free annual celebration of science and the arts held in South Kensington, in collaboration with neighboring institutions like the Natural History Museum,Science Museum,V&A, andRoyal Albert Hall. The festival, which succeeded the annual Imperial Festival, draws over 50,000 visitors with a weekend of talks, interactive exhibits showcasing Imperial's research, and performances.[152]
^Includes those who indicate that they identify asAsian,Black,Mixed Heritage,Arab or any other ethnicity except White.
^Calculated from the Polar4 measure, using Quintile1, in England and Wales. Calculated from theScottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) measure, using SIMD20, in Scotland.
^"FAQ's About Imperial".Imperial's legal name is, 'The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine', derived from a Royal Charter in 1907 under the name 'Imperial College of Science and Technology'. Its Royal Charter was amended to include medicine in 1988.
^abJean Bocock; Lewis Baston; Peter Scott; David Smith (2003). "American influence on British higher education: science, technology, and the problem of university expansion, 1945–1963".Minerva.41 (4):327–346.doi:10.1023/B:MINE.0000005154.25610.b2.JSTOR41821255.S2CID143347639.
^Ferguson, Neil M; Laydon, Daniel; Nedjati-Gilani, Gemma; Imai, Natsuko; Ainslie, Kylie; Baguelin, Marc; Bhatia, Sangeeta; Boonyasiri, Adhiratha; Cucunubá, Zulma; Cuomo-Dannenburg, Gina; Dighe, Amy; Fu, Han; Gaythorpe, Katy; Thompson, Hayley; Verity, Robert; Volz, Erik; Wang, Haowei; Wang, Yuanrong; Walker, Patrick GT; Walters, Caroline; Winskill, Peter; Whittaker, Charles; Donnelly, Christl A; Riley, Steven; Ghani, Azra C (16 March 2020)."Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand"(PDF).Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine: 20.Archived(PDF) from the original on 16 March 2020. Retrieved22 March 2020.
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