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Imperial launches new-look interactive news service

12 March 2013

Imperial College London has launched a brand new interactive news website.

Imperial News is modelled closely on established news websites such as the BBC but will be unique in the UK university sector.

The site will feature expert opinion pieces alongside news of Imperial’s research and education activities, and users will be able to engage with Imperial by commenting on stories.

Imperial News has an adaptable layout, with a variety of column designs and lead story layouts that gives it the flexibility to respond to daily news. It replaces a chronological list of stories – standard for the sector – with a front page and series of themed sections on science, engineering, health, business, and college and campus, letting readers browse the subjects that interest them the most.

It has been tailored to make it easy to access content from a variety of platforms including touchscreen smartphones and tablets. Audio, video images and the written word will all be used to bring news and feature stories to life.

Caroline Davis, Head of Communications at Imperial, said: “As one of the world’s top universities, Imperial is a source of fascinating stories about new discoveries, student achievements and day to day life on our campuses.  In developing Imperial News we wanted to do justice to those stories, capturing their vibrancy through a window on the world of the College.”

“We hope people will enjoy exploring Imperial News and look forward to receiving their comments.”

The site will combine specially commissioned material with news and features from the College’s existing news channels such as press releases, the staff newspaper Reporter and the Imperial podcast.

Karsten Seipp, Senior Digital Designer and Developer at Imperial said: “We have designed the site to make it easy for anyone who is interested in science news and news about Imperial to be able to access it freely. A front page and a series of theme pages will help users to browse through content and once they have clicked through to a story, they will be offered a variety of other stories and links that may be of interest.”

Content for the site is produced and edited by staff from Imperial’s award-winning Communications and Public Affairs Division with contributions from the College’s Faculties of Medicine, Natural Sciences and Engineering, the Business School and support services.

The site will be edited by Kerry Noble, Research Editor and News Manager, and graduate of Imperial’s Science Communication MSc. She said: “I look forward to reading comments from colleagues and students across the College. I also want to encourage staff and students to contribute to the pages by suggesting story ideas and by writing their own stories.”

Imperial News is aimed at broad audience including the 22,000 current staff and students, 168,000 alumni and the general public.

“We hope Imperial News will inform and entertain anyone with an interest in the College’s work. The breadth of news and features could help school students researching course work, patients hoping to learn about the latest medical advances, and academics from other institutions seeking new collaborations,” Caroline Davis added.

Tags: News
Posted in Alumni, College, Research, Students, Your Voice | 2 Comments »

You Tubed – Imperial channel passes one million views

10 July 2012

Anti-gravity demonstrations, molecular gastronomy and Luke Skywalker on campus are all among the hit videos that have recently pushed Imperial’s YouTube channel past the one million views mark.

Featuring almost 350 videos, the channel lets viewers learn more about the College, its research and facilities, and about student life.

Launched in April 2008, the channel now has nearly 2,000 subscribers. The most popular video, with over a quarter of a millions views alone, shows Professor Eric Laithwaite in 1983 using a gyro wheel to showcase some of the stranger principles of Physics.

(more…)

Tags: News, Research communications, Students
Posted in College, Research, Students, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Minister gives keynote lecture at Imperial

13 June 2012

David Willetts MP, Minister for Universities and Science, signalled the impact of Imperial public policy and innovation research when outlining the government’s priorities for Higher Education in a keynote lecture at Imperial College London on 12 June.

Speaking to an audience which included research council leaders, figures from industry, and Imperial staff and students, the Minister highlighted the need for rigorous analysis to inform the case for investing in Higher Education. Describing universities as institutions which transform lives, contribute to culture and society and are bastions of freedom of debate, he noted that while they are of great value in their own right, it is important to demonstrate their economic returns.

The Minister cited how Imperial research played a key role in discussions with the Treasury during the last Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010. He said that his department drew heavily on a report by Professor Jonathan Haskel (Business School), which suggested that the £3.5 billion a year currently spent on publicly funded research generates an additional annual output of £45 billion in UK companies. David Willetts called on the sector to continue to make the economic case for science and research by assembling more rigorous arguments in the months and years ahead amid the continuing debate about public funding priorities.

In challenging universities to harness new ways to finance extra research and development activity, the Minister described Imperial Innovations as one of the most innovative and advanced organisations currently at work in the area. Imperial Innovations, in which Imperial College has a major shareholding, was the first UK university technology transfer operation to be publicly listed and has equity holdings in more than 80 companies, many spun out of  research at Imperial.

David Willetts highlighted the need for continuous sustained cooperation between academic researchers and business. Referring to points included in a book by Imperial’s Professor David Gann (Business School), Innovation: A very short introduction, the Minister said, “The great innovation machine is not a sausage machine or a relay race. Think of it as an ecosystem”. He noted plans to systematically assess and support the major paths in science and technology where the UK has a strong academic presence and the business potential to exploit that.

Willetts said he was also keen to see closer working relationships between universities. He cited the collaborative approaches taken at the Crick Institute, the major new interdisciplinary medical research institute to be based in London, and Imanova, both of which involve Imperial as a partner institution, and the opportunities these offered to bid for funding as groups and share facilities. Imanova, which was opened by David Willetts at the end of May, is a pioneering public-private collaboration which plans to become an internationally renowned imaging centre using the site  established and previously run by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The new company has been formed by the Medical Research Council, Kings College London, UCL (University College London) and Imperial.

Speaking of a recent policy announcement, Willetts said that the government would sweep away regulation surrounding the number of students an institution must have to be entitled to ‘university’ status. On plans to reduce the figure from four thousand to one thousand, Willetts said “What should count is educational quality, not size. It’s absurd that we have excellent HE institutions which are not permitted to call themselves universities just because of their size. We believe another 10 institutions will be able to take the great name ‘university’ without any sacrifice of standards.” The proposal could see institutions such as the Royal Agricultural College and the Royal College of Music, take up university status.

Concluding, the Minister said, “I hope that if we put all that together we will be able to address the challenges to ensure our university based research activities remain world class and advance further into the next century.”

— Simon Watts, Communications and Development

Tags: Business School, News
Posted in College, Research, Students | 1 Comment »

Harvesting energy and water from human waste

4 April 2012

A prototype system for recovering drinkable water and harvesting hydrogen energy from human faecal waste beat more than 2,000 other proposals to receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in November 2011.

The winning team of scientists from the Department of Materials, the University of Manchester and Durham University, believe the technology could be used in an inexpensive device by people in the developing world to generate clean water and energy from waste. It also could be used as a sustainable source of hydrogen energy to power homes.

The researchers say that the device will be portable, allowing installation in homes and remote locations. The technology is based on a porous scaffold that holds bacteria and metal nanoparticles. When faecal sludge is filtered through the scaffold, these particles react with the waste matter to generate the recycled resources. These can either be used immediately or stored for later use.

The first stage of the project will see the team developing a standalone sanitation device, making it easier and cheaper for people in developing countries to adopt the technology where large sewage networks may not exist. Where sewage infrastructure is in place, the technology could be hooked into the system, minimising implementation costs for home owners.

Dr Martyn McLachlan (Materials) said: “In the future, we may see homes in the UK generating their own clean water, energy and fertiliser simply by doing what comes naturally to us all once or twice day. More important are the implications for developing countries, where the provision of clean drinking water is essential for supporting life and self-generated energy could be used to support economic growth.”

— Colin Smith, Communications and Development

Read the full press release here

Tags: Materials, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »

THE world reputation rankings

4 April 2012

In the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2012, published on 15 March, Imperial was ranked 12th in the world for teaching reputation (down from 10th) and 14th in the world for research reputation (down from 12th), leading to an overall reputational ranking of 13th, a fall of two places from 2011.

Imperial maintained its position of third in the UK. The 2012 Reputation Rankings are based on a survey of academic opinion around the world.

Tags: News
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Making the NHS a safer place

4 April 2012

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in partnership with the College, has been awarded £7.2 million to establish a Centre for Translational Research in Patient Safety.

The five-year award, from the National Institute for Health Research, extends the duration and scope of the existing Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, and brings together a range of disciplines to develop new ways of improving the safety, quality and effectiveness of healthcare services

Tags: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »

DSc for George

4 April 2012

Andrew George, Professor of Molecular Immunology (Medicine) and Director of the Graduate School, has been awarded the DSc degree of Imperial College London.

(more…)

Tags: Graduate School, Medicine, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »

Labour leader tours engineering innovations exhibition

9 March 2012

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband visited the College on Tuesday 6 March to tour the Past, Present, and Future exhibition and to talk to students from the Innovation Design Engineering course.

The winning student team (pictured with Mr Miliband) have designed a paralympic training device that fits to the arm and vibrates when the athlete has adopted the optimum arm position for the sport. The team has been awarded a £1,000 prize, plus £5,000 to develop their invention further.

(more…)

Tags: News, Royal College of Art
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Stateside Higgs hunt

9 March 2012

Physicists searching for evidence of the Higgs Boson at the USA’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, including a team from Imperial, have announced new results that closely match those revealed at CERN last December.

(more…)

Tags: News, Physics
Posted in Research | 2 Comments »

New podcast

9 March 2012

Imperial’s latest podcast hears from PhD student Tom Whyntie, who discusses whether our clocks should be tethered to the rotation of the Earth, plus discover why Dr Robert Gross (Centre for Environmental Policy) thinks we need a more informed public debate on renewable energy, and much more.

Listen to the complete podcast here

Tags: Centre for Environmental Policy, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »

Acting Principal, Business School

9 March 2012

Professor Dorothy Griffiths, Deputy Principal, Imperial College Business School, has been appointed Acting Principal, following the recent retirement of Professor David Begg.

The search for a successor to Professor Begg, who served as Principal from 2003, is underway. Professor Griffiths will lead the Business School until the new Principal takes up the appointment

Tags: Business School, News
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College Tutor

9 March 2012

Dr Lynda White (Mathematics) has been appointed as a College Tutor. She joins the team of current College Tutors: Mrs Margaret Cunningham, Dr Mick Jones and Dr Simon Archer.

(more…)

Tags: Mathematics, News
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Imperial signs up to strategic partnership with BBSRC

9 March 2012

Imperial scientists hope to deliver advances in biosciences – including food security, bioenergy, ageing and synthetic biology – faster and more cost-effectively, thanks to a new highlevel partnership between the College and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

BBSRC’s strategic partnerships, of which there are seven currently, encourage scientists to work more closely with those who share the same research goals, and give universities the opportunity to take a coordinated approach to investing funds awarded by BBSRC for research activities and facilities. The partnerships recognise the longstanding record of excellent research that the universities have in biological sciences.

(more…)

Tags: Faculty of Natural Sciences, News
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Funding announced to support Doctoral Training Partnership

21 February 2012

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded approximately £4.5 million to Imperial, Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Research Complex at Harwell to establish a joint Doctoral Training Partnership.

(more…)

Tags: Life Sciences, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »

Green wall to deliver cleaner air

27 January 2012

On 28 November, a 200m² green wall designed to trap pollution was unveiled at Edgware Road station.

(more…)

Tags: Centre for Environmental Policy, News
Posted in Research | No Comments »