President hails ‘new paradigm’ for science as Imperial launches new strategy

The College unveiled its new strategy on Tuesday, with an address from Hugh Brady in the early afternoon, followed by a glitzy evening launch event at the Science Museum.

Speaking at his annual President’s Address, Brady said that the strategy, named Science for Humanity, will “maximise Imperial’s potential as a force for good in the world".

“Our strategy is built on the premise that we will need to be even smarter and more agile, and to play to our strengths and differentiators,” he said, acknowledging the resource gap that exists between Imperial and its competitors in the US and Asia.

The College has taken a three pronged approach, in which it says it will ‘enable talent’, ‘power research’ and ‘amplify impact’.

The university will overhaul its efforts to attract and nurture scientific talent with a series of new scholarships and a major recruitment drive.

Researchers will have the opportunity to join one of four ‘Schools of Convergence Science', in an attempt to spur interdisciplinary research.

Academics will remain a part of their departments and faculties, but also be able to join a research community in one of the following four areas: human and artificial intelligence; health, MedTech, and robotics; climate, energy, and sustainability; and space, security, and telecommunications.

President Hugh Brady said the schools were “potentially gamechanging” in Tuesday’s address, vaunting them as "a new paradigm for scientific exploration", utilising the university’s cross-disciplinary expertise to solve the world’s problems.

The College will aim to accelerate the journey towards new discoveries and ‘amplify’ their impact. 

As Chairman Mao once said, ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ 

Imperial will build a series of research hubs in ‘strategic global cities’. Under the banner of Imperial Global, the research hubs will build on the College’s links with alumni and build new partnerships across the world. The first hubs will be located in Singapore, Ghana, the United States, and India.

Closer to home, Imperial says it will become the ‘engine’ of an ‘innovation ecosystem’ in West London. Under the banner of ‘Imperial WestTech Corridor’, the White City campus will be developed further to make it a hub for mathematics, data and computer sciences, AI and machine learning, and business.

Speaking on Tuesday, Brady said that the initiative would help grow the UK economy, improve productivity and create jobs, helping to make the UK a “science superpower”.

Outgoing College Council Chair John Allan was keen to stress the scale of the plan, drawing upon the words of Mao Zedong. 

He said the strategy would “take years to fully implement, but we have to take the first steps. As Chairman Mao once said …, ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’”