News

Imperial falls in latest ranking table

This week the Complete University Guide (CUG) released their latest ranking table for Universities within the United Kingdom.

Kunal M L Wagle

16 May 2014

This week the Complete University Guide (CUG) released their latest ranking table for Universities within the United Kingdom. Imperial College saw their ranking diminish from 4th to 6th – a drop that saw the College overtaken in the standings by St Andrews and Durham, who took 4th and 5th respectively.

The rankings were topped by Cambridge, who were followed by Oxford and the London School of Economics. Imperial were not the only university to fall within the top ten though, as University College London also dropped two places to 9th. A lot of the changes in the rankings are thought to be due to a change in the system, with major changes in how graduate employment is viewed and rated.

Royal Society of Chemistry awards five prizes to Imperial Professors

This week five Imperial chemists were rewarded for their contributions to chemical sciences with prizes from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

New study claims that lectures are ineffective

According to an American study from academics at the Universities of Washington and Maine, “students in classes with traditional lecturing [were] 1.5 times more likely to fail than were students in classes with active learning.”

Imperial sign pledge to be more open about animals in research

On Wednesday, Imperial became one of the 72 organisations to sign a Concordat on Animal Research within the United Kingdom. The Concordat, which promises that the organisations will be transparent about their experiments on animals, follows an opinion poll conducted in 2012.

Imperial comes bottom in Times Higher Ed. Student Experience Survey for ‘fair workload’

Yesterday saw College coming in 43rd place in the Times Higher Education (THE) Student Experience Survey 2014. Ranked on 21 different attributes, from the strength of the students’ union to the fairness of the workload, the data was gathered by YouthSight over the course of last academic year.

Environment

College Fossil Fuel partners explore options in Venezuela

Since the removal of Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolas Maduro, by an American task force in January, President Donald Trump has vociferously called for oil companies to rekindle their commercial ties with the embattled petrostate. Although many have been reluctant to “take the oil”, baulking at high upfront investments to

Environment

Lobbying by Stove Industry undermines Council Public Health Campaigns and Housing Plans

An investigation published by The BMJ in March reveals councils in England face legal pressure from the Stove Industry Association (SIA) as public health campaigns urge homeowners to limit the use of wood-burners. Findings from freedom of information requests, sent to local authority areas identified as having the highest density

Books

The Elements

What I thought would be a quick pitstop at a local bookshop in Chiswick turned into a half-hour chat with the owner where I realised I hadn’t read a life-changing book in a while. The conversation inspired a strong urge to change that; I grabbed a copy of The