Our four themes reflect a society we all want to live in. In practice, they build on our faculty and department strategies by coalescing areas of current excellence, areas of emerging intellectual focus in research and education, and areas of opportunity where we can build new strengths. These are the themes within which, now and in the immediate future, the College will seek to accelerate its discovery and impact to society through strategic, college-wide investments.

The four themes we have identified are areas where our expertise is particularly strong, and where there are clear unanswered questions or societal challenges that require attention.

Sustainable and Healthy

two researchers with plants in lab

Sustainable Society

We are helping society to become more sustainable by transforming manufacturing, attitudes to consumption and economic practices.
The toxicology unit at Charing Cross Hospital

Healthy Society

We are innovating new technologies and strategies to improve health services and support the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease by bringing together scientific disciplines and integrating them with clinical and public health practices.

Smart and Resilient

data observatory screens image

Smart Society

We are making discoveries and developing new technologies in artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, data sciences and robotics, and are helping to better understand how they will transform lives and environments and present new challenges to the world of work.
researcher uses machinery in lab

Resilient Society

We are developing understanding and technologies to enable stable and robust infrastructures that underpin the delivery of services – from water, fuel and power to data, communications and the banking system – to make our society resilient.

Within these themes, there are sub-themes that reflect particular areas of research strength, and areas that offer opportunities to build new strengths. (See the individual theme pages for details.)

The College has numerous strengths that overlap multiple themes and sub-themes – see cross-cutting sub-themes for more information.

Download the Academic Strategy Summary [PDF, 7.5 MB]Download the Academic Strategy [PDF, 5.5MB]

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