Imperial College London (The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in England. Its royal patron and founder, Prince Albert, envisioned an area for education in science, industry and art, composed of the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute.[6The Imperial Institute was opened by his wife, Queen Victoria, who laid the first brick. Contin] uing their parent's and grandparent's vision, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of York recently opened the Imperial College Business School. The university has grown through mergers including with St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and the National Heart and Lung Institute. A former constituent college of the University of London, Imperial became independent during its centennial celebration.
Imperial is organised into four faculties of science, engineering, medicine and business. The main campus is located in South Kensington. The university is a major biomedical research centre and formed the first academic health science centre in the United Kingdom. Imperial is a member of the Russell Group, G5, Association of Commonwealth Universities, League of European Research Universities, and the "Golden Triangle" of British universities.
Imperial is consistently included among the world's best universities, ranking 2nd in the 2015 QS World University Rankings and 9th in the 2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. According to The New York Times, recruiters consider its students among the 10 most valued graduates in the world. Imperial's faculty and alumni include 15 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 70 Fellows of the Royal Society, 82 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 The Great Exhibition
1.2 Royal College of Chemistry
1.3 Royal School of Mines
1.4 Royal College of Science
1.5 1907 to 2000
1.6 2000 to 2010
1.7 2010 to present
2 Campuses
2.1 South Kensington
2.2 Other existing campuses
2.3 Imperial West
3 Administration and organisation
3.1 Faculties
3.2 Finances
4 Academics
4.1 Rankings
4.2 Research
4.3 Medicine
4.4 Admissions
4.5 Controversy
5 Student life
5.1 Student body
5.2 Imperial College Union
5.3 Facilities
5.4 Student activities
5.5 Student housing
6 Notable alumni, faculty and staff
7 References
8 Bibliography
9 External links
History[edit]
The Great Exhibition[edit]
The Imperial Institute
The Great Exhibition was organised by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Fuller and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. The Great Exhibition made a surplus of £186,000 used in creating an area in the South of Kensington celebrating the encouragement of the arts, industry, and science. Albert insisted the Great Exhibition surplus should be used as a home for culture and education for everyone. His commitment was to find practical solutions to today's social challenges. Prince Albert's vision built the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Geological Museum, Royal College of Science, Royal College of Art, Royal School of Mines, Royal School of Music, Royal College of Organists, Royal School of Needlework, Royal Geographical Society, Institute of Recorded Sound, Royal Horticulatural Gardens, Royal Albert Hall and the Imperial Institute. Royal colleges and the Imperial Institute merged to form what is now Imperial College London.
Royal College of Chemistry[edit]
The Royal College of Chemistry was established by private subscription in 1845 as there was a growing awareness that practical aspects of the experimental sciences were not well taught and that in the United Kingdom the teaching of chemistry in particular had fallen behind that in Germany. As a result of a movement earlier in the decade, many politicians donated funds to establish the college, including Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Robert Peel. It was also supported by Prince Albert, who persuaded August Wilhelm von Hofmann to be the first professor.
William Henry Perkin studied and worked at the college under von Hofmann, but resigned his position after discovering the first synthetic dye, mauveine, in 1856. Perkin's discovery was prompted by his work with von Hofmann on the substance aniline, derived from coal tar, and it was this breakthrough which sparked the synthetic dye industry, a boom which some historians have labelled the second chemical revolution. His contribution led to the creation of the Perkin Medal, an award given annually by the Society of Chemical Industry to a scientist residing in the United States for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development". It is considered the highest honour given in the industrial chemical industry.
Royal School of Mines[edit]
The Natural History Museum
The Royal School of Mines was established by Sir Henry de la Beche in 1851, developing from the Museum of Economic Geology, a collection of minerals, maps and mining equipment. He created a school which laid the foundations for the teaching of science in the country, and which has its legacy today at Imperial. Prince Albert was a patron and supporter of the later developments in science teaching, which led to the Royal College of Chemistry becoming part of the Royal School of Mines, to the creation of the Royal College of Science and eventually to these institutions becoming part of his plan for South Kensington being an educational region.
Royal College of Science[edit]
The Royal College of Science was established in 1881. The main objective was to support the training of science teachers and to develop teaching in other science subjects alongside the Royal School of Mines earth sciences specialities.
1907 to 2000[edit]
In 1907, the newly established Board of Education found that greater capacity for higher technical education was needed and a proposal to merge the City and Guilds College, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science was approved and passed, creating The Imperial College of Science and Technology as a constituent college of the University of London. Imperial's Royal Charter, granted by Edward VII, was officially signed on 8 July 1907. The main campus of Imperial College was constructed beside the buildings of the Imperial Institute in South Kensington.
The Royal School of Mines building
City and Guilds College was founded in 1876 from a meeting of 16 of the City of London's livery companies for the Advancement of Technical Education (CGLI), which aimed to improve the training of craftsmen, technicians, technologists, and engineers. The two main objectives were to create a Central Institution in London and to conduct a system of qualifying examinations in technical subjects. Faced with their continuing inability to find a substantial site, the Companies were eventually persuaded by the Secretary of the Science and Art Department, General Sir John Donnelly (who was also a Royal Engineer) to found their institution on the eighty-seven acre (350,000 m²) site at South Kensington bought by the 1851 Exhibition Commissioners (for GBP 342,500) for 'purposes of art and science' in perpetuity. The latter two colleges were incorporated by Royal Charter into the Imperial College of Science and Technology and the CGLI Central Technical College was renamed the City and Guilds College in 1907, but not incorporated into Imperial College until 1910.
The medical schools of Charing Cross Hospital, Westminster Hospital and St Mary's Hospital were opened in 1823, 1834 and 1854 respectively.
Imperial acquired Silwood Park in 1947, to provide a site for research and teaching in those aspects of biology not well suited for the main London campus. Felix, Imperial's student newspaper, was launched on 9 December 1949. On 29 January 1950, the government announced that it was intended that Imperial should expand to meet the scientific and technological challenges of the 20th century and a major expansion of the College followed over the next decade. In 1959 the Wolfson Foundation donated £350,000 for the establishment of a new Biochemistry Department.[citation needed] A special relationship between Imperial and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi was established in 1963.[citation needed]
The Department of Management Science was created in 1971 and the Associated Studies Department was established in 1972. The Humanities Department was opened in 1980, formed from the Associated Studies and History of Science departments.
In 1988 Imperial merged with St Mary's Hospital Medical School, becoming The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. In 1995 Imperial launched its own academic publishing house, Imperial College Press, in partnership with World Scientific. Imperial merged with the National Heart and Lung Institute in 1995 and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) and the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1997. In the same year the Imperial College School of Medicine was formally established and all of the property of Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School were transferred to Imperial as the result of the Imperial College Act 1997. In 1998 the Sir Alexander Fleming Building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II to provide a headquarters for the College's medical and biomedical research.
2000 to 2010[edit]
Victoria and Albert Museum
In 2000 Imperial merged with both the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and Wye College, the University of London's agricultural college in Wye, Kent. It initially agreed to keep Agricultural Sciences at Wye, but closed them in 2004.[25] The origins of the later acquired College of St Gregory and St Martin at Wye, was originally founded by John Kempe, the Archbishop of York, in 1447 as a seminary, with an agricultural college being established at Wye in 1894 after the removal of the seminary.
In December 2005, Imperial announced a science park programme at the Wye campus, with extensive housing; however, this was abandoned in September 2006 following complaints that the proposal infringed on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and that the true scale of the scheme, which could have raised £110m for the College, was known to Kent and Ashford Councils and their consultants but concealed from the public. One commentator observed that Imperial's scheme reflected "the state of democracy in Kent, the transformation of a renowned scientific college into a grasping, highly aggressive, neo-corporate institution, and the defence of the status of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – throughout England, not just Wye – against rampant greed backed by the connivance of two important local authorities. Wye College campus was finally closed in September 2009.
In May 2001 a new faculty structure was established, with all departments being assigned to the Faculties of Engineering, Medicine, Physical Sciences and Life Sciences. A merger with University College London was proposed in October 2002, but was abandoned a month later following protests from staff over potential redundancies.
In 2003 Imperial was granted degree-awarding powers in its own right by the Privy Council. The London Centre for Nanotechnology was established in the same year as a joint venture between UCL and Imperial College London. In 2004 the Tanaka Business School (now named the Imperial College Business School) and a new Main Entrance on Exhibition Road were opened by The Queen. The UK Energy Research Centre was also established in 2004 and opened its headquarters at Imperial College. In November 2005 the Faculties of Life Sciences and Physical Sciences merged to become the Faculty of Natural Sciences.
On 9 December 2005, Imperial College announced that it would commence negotiations to secede from the University of London. Imperial College became fully independent of the University of London in July 2007 and the first students to register for an Imperial College degree were postgraduates beginning their course in October 2007, with the first undergraduates enrolling for an Imperial degree in October 2008.
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