University College London
(UCL) is a constituent college of the University of London, based primarily
in Bloomsbury
, London
.
Founded in
1826, UCL was the first university institution to be founded in
London, the first university institution in the United Kingdom
to be established on an entirely secular basis and
admit students regardless of their religion, and the first to admit
women on equal terms with men. UCL became one of the two
founding colleges of the University of London in 1836. UCL's
founding principles of accessibility and liberalism have encouraged
the institution to champion innovation, diversity and relevance to
society, positioning it at the forefront of education and
research.
UCL has been consistently ranked among the top five university
institutions in the UK, and was ranked 4th in the world in the 2009
THE–QS World
University Rankings.
Geography and Location

A summertime view from the
South-Eastern corner of the quadrangle towards the UCL main
building on Gower Street
University
College London (UCL) is located in Bloomsbury
, Central
London. The main campus
is on Gower Street
, although there are also other UCL buildings
throughout London. The Gower Street campus includes the UCL
science and main libraries, the language departments, the history
departments, the
Bloomsbury theatre
, the biology and physics departments, and the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian
Archaeology
. A further set of buildings based around
neighbouring Gordon Street and Gordon Square
includes the Institute of Archaeology, the
chemistry department, the philosophy department the Bartlett School of The Built Environment
and the School of Slavonic
and East European Studies.
The area
around UCL is occupied by a number of other renowned institutions,
including the British
Library
, the British Museum
, the Royal Academy of Art
, the British
Medical Association, and the Wellcome
Trust. Many University of London schools and
institutes are close by, and these include the SOAS
, Birkbeck, University of London
, the Institute of Education
, the School of
Advanced Study and the Senate House
Library
, which houses the University of London's
world-class research collections; these focus on the arts,
humanities and social sciences. (All UCL students on degree
courses, and all UCL staff have full access to this library and its
electronic resources).
The
nearest London Underground
station to the main UCL campus is Euston
Square
. Other nearby stations are Warren
Street
, Russell Square
and Goodge Street
, as well as Euston
Underground and railway station.
History
UCL was
founded in 1826 under the name "London University"
as a secular alternative to the religious
universities of Oxford
and Cambridge
. As such, it is often described as the
"
third oldest
English university" (although other institutions also claim
this title).
While the philosopher
Jeremy Bentham
is seen as the moving spirit behind the establishment of this new
university for London, he personally took no part in the
university's creation. Crucially, however, it was Bentham's
powerful, radical ideas on education and society that had inspired
the institution's founders, particularly the Scotsmen
James Mill (1773–1836) and
Henry Brougham (1778–1868), and shaped its
creation.
In 1836,
"London University" became known as "University College,
London" (the comma between the words College and London
was commonly used until recently), when, under a Royal Charter, it worked with the recently
established King's
College, London
, to create the federal University of London.
In 1907, the University of London was formally reconstituted with a
new Royal charter, and new institutions joined the federation.
Under this re-organisation it was necessary for each of the various
institutions that now formed the University of London to lose their
separate legal existences, and all offered degrees awarded by the
University of London. This situation continued until 1977 when a
new charter restored UCL's independence, although - at that time -
not the power to award its own degrees.
In 2005 UCL was once again granted its own taught and research
Degree Awarding Powers (DAP), and all new UCL students registered
from 2007–08 qualify with UCL degrees rather than degrees of the
University of London. The majority of continuing students who were
enrolled on taught-degree programmes before the academic year
2007–08 had the choice of whether to receive a UCL degree or a
University of London degree. These changes did not apply to
students registered on the MBBS programme, or federal degrees, who
continued to be awarded University of London degrees. Despite these
DAP changes, UCL retains its strong links with the University of
London.'UCL Unveils New Academic Dress' in
UCL News. URL:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0803/08032602 >, was
live on 25 July 2008
In 2008, UCL became the first UK university to sign agreements for
a campus in Australia, establishing the UCL School of Energy &
Resources, Australia (SERAus) in Adelaide.
Present Day
Today, UCL is a member of the
Russell
Group of Universities, a part of the
Golden Triangle, the
European University
Association, the
Association of
Commonwealth Universities, a member of
Universities UK, and the
League of European
Research Universities.
According to the latest THES - QS World University
Rankings, UCL is ranked 4th in the world and 2nd in the
UK
after University of Cambridge
, coming above University of Oxford
and Imperial College London
, who tie in joint 5th place.
UCL offers more than 200 degrees in traditional fields of study,
with virtually all subjects rated internationally-excellent or
world-leading. Many students get to learn abroad; UCL has
partnerships with 46 of the world’s top 100 universities. UCL have
hundreds of collaborative research and teaching partners, including
almost 150 research links and 129 student-exchange partnerships
with top European and North-American universities.
Although UCL voluntarily remains a constituent college of the
University of London, it is in many ways comparable with
free-standing, self-governing and independently funded
universities, awarding its own degrees.
Today, with over
8,000 staff and 22,000 students from over 150 countries
(international students make up for a third of the student body),
UCL is larger than most other universities in the United Kingdom
, and is physically and academically at the centre
of the University of
London.
There are currently 21 Nobel prizewinners amongst UCL’s alumni and
former staff. Professor Charles Kao, awarded a Nobel prize in
October 2009, received his PhD from the University of London under
the supervision of Professor
Harold
Barlow at UCL
An ever-expanding worldwide network of more than 120,000 UCL
alumni, helps to maintain the university’s international reputation
for access, innovation and excellence.The academic community
includes 36 fellows of the Royal Society, 26 Fellows of the British
Academy, 10 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 78
Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
In 2008, UCL had an annual turnover of £635 million and fixed
assets worth £581 million.
The current Provost and President of UCL is Professor
Malcolm Grant.
Academic Reputation
This year UCL was rated as the fourth best university in the world,
according to the
THE–QS World University
Rankings, , coming ahead of Oxford University and Imperial
College London.
According to the
UK university league
tables, UCL is and has been one of the UK's top multi-faculty
universities throughout its long history.
The Sunday Times newspaper, which recently
voted UCL as 'University of the Year', describes UCL as 'the best
multi-faculty university after Oxbridge'. Moreover, as part of the
THES - QS World
University Rankings, UCL was voted the 12th best
university in the world amongst leading worldwide employers..
UCL law
school
in particular is "tipped by insiders as the best
law faculty in the United Kingdom" and the Slade School
of Fine Art
, UCL's art department is internationally renowned
for its excellence.
UCL's
Bartlett School of
Architecture and
Institute
of Archaeology are also largely considered the best in their
respective fields in the country, and UCL's economics department
rivals the
LSE's in terms of competitiveness and
entry requirements.
According
to The Guardian newspaper, UCL, along with King's College, London
School of Economics
, and Imperial College
, each "have international reputations that in this
country only Oxbridge can
beat".
UCL is ranked first in the UK for its staff/student ratio in The
Times Good University Guide, The Sunday Times University Guide and
The Guardian University Guide. UCL has the highest number of
professors of any university in the UK, with more than 600
established and personal chairs, as well as the highest number of
female professors. More than 4,000 academic and research staff are
dedicated to research and teaching of the highest standards.
According
to data released in July 2008 by the Thomson
ISI Web of Knowledge’s Essential Science Indicators,
UCL is the most-cited institution in the UK, and up one place from
the last analysis to 13th in the world (Oxford
University
is ranked 18th and Cambridge University
20th). The analysis covers citations from
1 January 1998 to 30 April 2008, during which 46,166 UCL
research papers attracted 803,566 citations. The number of
citations generated by academic publications is an important
indication of institutional importance and influence. The report
covers citations in 21 subject areas. The results revealed some of
UCL's key strengths:
in
Laws – 1st in the United Kingdom
in
Clinical Medicine – 1st outside
North America
in
Neuroscience &
Behaviour – 1st outside North America and 2nd in
the world
in
Psychiatry/
Psychology – 2nd outside North America
in
Immunology – 2nd in Europe
in
Pharmacology &
Toxicology – 1st outside North America and 4th in
the world
in
Social Sciences, General – 1st
outside North America
Shanghai Jiao Tong's 2008 analysis of subject areas showed that
UCL's global ranking rose from 17th to 13th in
Clinical
Medicine & Pharmacy, with 2nd place in the UK. In
Life
& Agricultural Sciences, UCL rose from 24th to 19th
globally, with 3rd place in the UK.
UCL was also recently voted the 'Hippest University' in the UK by
Vogue Magazine, and the best
university in the UK for two years running by
Pink Paper, the UK's leading gay and lesbian
newspaper.
UK University
Rankings]]
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Guardian University Guide |
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Research
University College London (UCL) is one of the UK's premier research
intensive universities. As such, it is an important member of the
prestigious
Russell Group of leading universities. UCL has
placed cross-disciplinary research as a priority and is orientating
its research around four "
Grand
Challenges". Professor David Price, Pro-Provost for Research
explains: "We believe we have a moral obligation to make a
difference to global problems, and to combine the knowledge that
our research generates to develop wisdom that can be applied in
each of the four Grand Challenges: Global Health, Sustainable
Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing."
This focus is paying dividends in terms of securing funding from
research councils. In the
Times Higher Education ranking of research council
awards 2008-9 UCL is shown to have won the most research awards
with 174 awards amounting to £81,365,000. In second place Cambridge
won 162 awards amounting to £74,263,000. In third place Oxford won
153 awards amounting to £54,750,000. This is thought to be the
first time that a university other than Cambridge or Oxford has
headed the table.
UCL has also been very successful in securing research funding
under the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's
(EPSRC) prestigious centres for doctoral training (CDTs). The aim
of these centres is to "provide a supportive and exciting
environment for students to carry out a challenging PhD-level
research project together with taught coursework". UCL has won
funding for 9 of these centres, the next highest allocation was 4
centres awarded to the University of Bath. The centres awarded to
UCL are worth £40 million, which will fund 390 PhD places.
UCL's 9 CDTs are
Energy Demand Reduction and the Built Environment (UCL
Energy Institute and Loughborough University),
Financial Computing (UCL Computer Science),
Security
Science (UCL Centre for Crime and Security Science),
Photonic Systems Development (UCL Electronic and
Electrical Engineering in partnership with Cambridge University),
Virtual
Environments, Imaging and Visualisation (UCL Computer Science
and UCL Bartlett School),
Molecular Modelling and Materials Science (UCL
Chemistry),
Urban Sustainability & Resilience (UCL Civil,
Environmental and Geomatic Engineering and UCL Bartlett School),
Bioprocess Engineering Leadership (UCL Biochemical
Engineering) and
CoMPLEX (UCL Life Sciences).
There are currently approximately 3,000 PhD students working at
UCL. The University provides information for prospective PhD
students on its
Graduate web pages.
Admissions
Admissions at University College London is highly selective. The
majority of UCL's undergraduate courses requires one to apply
through the
UCAS system.
Many of UCL's courses require 3
A grades at
A Level, or a grade
equivalent of 6,6,6 on higher level subjects on the
International Baccalaureate
Program.
Due to a
very high proportion of applicants receiving the highest school
grades, UCL, along with Imperial College London
and the University of Cambridge
is one of the first universities in the UK to make
use of the A* grade at A-Level (to be introduced in 2010) for
admissions, particularly for very oversubscribed courses such as
Economics.
Alumni and Academics
UCL alumni range from
Mahatma Gandhi
and
Alexander Graham Bell, to
Ricky Gervais and all four members of
the band
Coldplay, as well as two members
of the band
Keane. Important authors
include
Stella Gibbons,
Robert Browning,
Rabindranath Tagore (did not graduate),
Raymond Briggs and
G. K.
Chesterton. Scientists and
engineers include
Francis Crick,
John Ambrose Fleming,
Joseph Lister,
Roger
Penrose,
Colin Chapman,
Patrick Head, physicist and astrobiologist
Paul Davies, evolutionary biologist
John Maynard Smith and the
aforementioned Bell. Artists, architects and designers include Sir
William Coldstream, Sir
Eduardo Paolozzi,
Ben Nicholson and
David Mlinaric. Politicians figure highly in
the lists, notably
Sir Stafford
Cripps (Chancellor of the Exchequer),
William Wedgwood
Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate (Liberal and subsequent Labour
politician), the first and former prime ministers of Japan
(
Hirobumi Ito and
Junichiro Koizumi respectively) and
Chaim Herzog, the former
President of Israel.
Moreover, the
founding father of Kenya
, Jomo Kenyatta was a UCL graduate.
Wu Tingfang (Ng Choy) was Minister of
Foreign Affairs and Acting Premier during the early days of the
Republic of China. The Lord Mayor of the City of London 2008-9,
Ian Luder is also an UCL alumnus.
Prominent
UCL law
graduates include a Lord Chancellor (Lord Herschell), the former Chief Justices of
England (Lord Woolf), Hong Kong (Sir
Yang Ti-liang), India (A.S. Anand) and Ghana
(Samuel Azu Crabbe), two Masters
of the Rolls (Lord Cozens-Hardy, Sir
George Jessel), as well as the
Attorneys-General of England (Lord
Goldsmith; Baroness Scotland),
Singapore (Tan Boon Teik; Chao Hick Tin) and Gambia
(Hassan Bubacar Jallow).
F.T. Cheng
a.k.a.
Cheng T'ien-Hsi was a judge
of the International Court of Justice at the Hague and was
Nationalist China's last ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Many leading journalists attended UCL including three former
editors of
The Economist, most notably
Walter Bagehot, and two editors of
The Times Literary Supplement. A number of entertainers and TV
personalities feature too, including
Justine Frischmann,
Jack Peñate,
Jonathan Dimbleby and
Jonathan Ross.
Key
business people include Edwin
Waterhouse (founding partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers
). Christopher
Nolan, director of "
The Dark
Knight" and other notable movies, is also an alumnus. In
addition, both of the managing directors of the
Jack Wills clothing chain are UCL graduates
having met during their time there.
David
Gower and
Christine Ohuruogu
from sports are also UCL graduates. Dr
Heenal Raichura, the UK's youngest doctor at
the age of 22, is also an alumnus. The singer/songwriter Zarif
Davidson, known professionally as
Zarif,
attended UCL.
UCL has the highest number of
professors
of any university in the UK. Currently among UCL academics there
are 35 fellows of the
Royal Society,
27 Fellows of the
British Academy,
and 77 Fellows of the
Academy of Medical Sciences. 21
Nobel prizes have been awarded to UCL
academics and students (ten of which were in Physiology &
Medicine) as well as three
Fields
Medals. All five of the naturally occurring
noble gases were discovered at UCL by
Sir William Ramsay, who was chair of
chemistry and after whom Ramsay Hall is named.
UCL buildings, Departments and Collections
UCL operates from many separate buildings.
Most of the buildings
are concentrated in the Bloomsbury
area of Central London (near Euston station), but
others are located as far away as Old Street. Some have been
acquired through mergers with other colleges, and others have been
newly built. The newest include the Engineering Wing on Malet Place
and the Andrew Huxley Building within the Gower Street site.
UCL's
newest buildings include the London
Centre for Nanotechnology
on Gordon Street and a new building for the
School of
Slavonic and East European Studies (formerly at Senate
House
) which was opened (by Princess Anne and the President of the Czech
Republic, Václav Klaus) in October
2005 on Taviton Street. The Institute of Ophthalmology
opened a new wing in 2005 funded by the Wellcome Trust.
UCL Libraries
The Donaldson Reading Room in the Main (Wilkins) Library at
University College London
The UCL
library is divided across several sites within the UCL campus and
across Bloomsbury
. All in all, there are over 16 different
libraries. Access to each library is gained by the use of an
electronic swipe card through electronic security barriers. The
libraries are linked together by a networking catalogue and request
system called eUCLid.
The largest collection of material is held
in the Main Library, which is in the UCL Main Building
. It contains UCL's collections relating to
arts and
humanities,
history,
economics, public policy and
law. The Flaxman Gallery, a collection of
sculptures and paintings by artist
John
Flaxman, is located inside the library in the Octagon building
under UCL's central dome.
The second largest library – the UCL Science Library –
occupies the DMS Watson building on Malet Place. It contains UCL's
books and journals related to
Engineering,
Mathematics,
anthropology,
geography, and
science.
It is
adjacent to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian
Archaeology
, access to which is next to the library
entrance. Other libraries within UCL include the Cruciform
Library (medical science), the Environmental Studies Library
(architecture and planning) and the
School of Slavonic
and East European Studies library on Taviton Street.
UCL's Special Collections contains UCL's collection of historical
or culturally significant works. It is one of the foremost
university collections of
manuscripts,
archives and
rare
books in the UK. It includes collections of
medieval manuscripts and early printed books, as
well as significant holdings of 18th-century works, and highly
important 19th- and 20th-century collections of personal papers,
archival material, and literature, covering a vast range of subject
areas. Archives include the Latin American archives, the
Jewish collections and the
George Orwell Archive.
Collections are often
displayed in a series of glass cabinets in the Cloisters of the
UCL Main
Building
.
The most significant works are housed in the Strong Rooms. The
special collection includes first editions of
Newton's Principia,
Charles Darwin's
Origin of Species and
James Joyce's
Ulysses . The earliest book in the
collection is
The crafte to lyve well and to dye well,
printed in 1505.
Since 2004, UCL Library Services has been collecting the scholarly
work of its researchers to make it freely available over the web
via an
open access
repository known as UCL Eprints. The intention is that material
curated by UCL Eprints will remain accessible indefinitely.
Notable Buildings
The newly built UCL Engineering Front on Torrington Place, in front
of the main Engineering School
- The
UCL Main
Building
, including the Octagon, Quad, Cloisters and the
Wilkins building designed by Architect William
Wilkins
- 1-19 Torrington Place
- Alexandra House (17 Queen Square) Institute of Cognitive
Neuroscience and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit
- The Bartlett centre for Architecture and planning
- Bedford Way Buildings, home of Psychology, Geography and the
Language Centre.
- Bentham House
(Endsleigh Street), home of the University
College London Law Faculty
- Chadwick House
- Chandler House, Linguistics department
- Christopher Ingold Laboratory (Gordon Street), where the
Chemistry department is based
- Cruciform Building — a red-brick building notable for being
built in a cross shape (Medicine)
- DMS Watson Science Library, named after D. M.
S. Watson, a former professor of zoology
- Drayton House
- Engineering Building (Malet Place) renamed to Roberts building
in 2005
- Foster Court (Languages)
- Institute of
Archaeology (Gordon Square)
- Jill Dando Institute
- London Centre for
Nanotechnology
(Gordon Street)
- Malet Place Engineering Building (completed in 2005, primarily
Computer Science and Medical Physics departments)
- Medawar (named after Peter
Medawar)
- Mullard Space Science
Laboratory, Holmbury
St. Mary
, Surrey
, is home to
the UK's largest space research group
- PAMELA
- Pearson Building (Quad), Geography
- Rockefeller Building (Science)
- SSEES, the School of Slavonic
and East European Studies, which has recently moved in a new
building on Taviton Street
- The
Slade School
of Art
, home to UCL's art department
since 1868
- University College Hospital
(recently re-built)
- UCLU (Gordon
Street)
- UCL Bloomsbury Theatre
(Gordon Street)
- The
Rubin Building (Tavistock
Square
), home to the Department of Political Science, the
newest department of the college and The Constitution Unit
- Wates House (Endsleigh Gardens)
Museums and other Collections
UCL is responsible for several museums and collections in a wide
range of fields across the arts and sciences:
- Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology
: one of the leading collections of Egyptian and
Sudanese archaeology in the world. Open to the public on a
regular basis.
- Grant Museum of Zoology And Comparative Anatomy: a diverse
Natural History collection covering the whole of the animal
kingdom. Includes rare dodo and quagga skeletons. A teaching and research collection,
it is named after Robert Edmund
Grant, UCL's first professor of comparative anatomy and zoology
from 1828, now mainly noted for having tutored the undergraduate
Charles Robert Darwin at the
University of Edinburgh in
the 1826-1827 session. Open at limited fixed times and by
appointment.
- Geology Collections: founded around 1855. Primarily a teaching
resource and may be visited by appointment.
- Art Collections: these date from 1847 when a collection of
sculpture models and drawings of the Neo-classical artist John Flaxman was presented to UCL. There are
over 10,000 pieces dating from the 15th century onwards including
drawings by Turner,
etchings by Rembrandt, and works by many
leading 20th century British artists. The works on paper are
displayed in the Strang Print Room, which has
limited regular opening times. The other works may be viewed by
appointment.
- Institute of
Archaeology Collections: Items include prehistoric ceramics and
stone artefacts from many parts of the world, the Petrie collection
of Palestinian artefacts, and Classical Greek and Roman ceramics.
Visits by appointment only.
- Ethnography Collections: This
collection exemplifying Material Culture, holds an enormous variety
of objects, textiles and artefacts from all over the world. Visits
by appointment only.
- Galton Collection: The scientific instruments, papers and
personal memorabilia of Sir Francis
Galton. Housed in the department of biology. Visits by
appointment only.
- Science Collections: Diverse collections primarily accumulated
in the course of UCL's own work, including the operating table on
which the first anaesthetic was administered. Items may be a viewed
by appointment.
Medicine and UCL Hospital
A night-time view of the Andrew Huxley Building and lighted passage
beneath the former Institute of Physiology at UCL
The UCL Medical School offers degrees in
medicine which take six years to complete. UCL has
offered courses in medicine since 1825 but the current medical
school is a merger of two other schools, that took place in 1998 .
UCL’s 11 associated teaching hospitals – which include the Great
Ormond Street Hospital for Children, the Royal Free Hospital and
Moorfields Eye Hospital – provide Londoners with first-rate
healthcare as well as contribute to major advances in medical
research.
Whittington Hospital
and Royal Free Hospital
Clinical medicine is primarily taught at three hospitals in London;
University College Hospital, The Royal Free Hospital and The
Whittington Hospital. University College Hospital is one of central
London's largest
NHS hospitals and is
part-financed by the university.
UCL's hospital facilities are located
around Bloomsbury
but the main hospital facility, including accident
and emergency, is located on Euston Road
. In 2004 work began to rebuild the main
hospital, most of the work is now finished with the final extension
due for completion by 2008. UCL also operates its own medical
research company,
UCL Biomedica.
UCL is a member of the
UCL Partners
academic health science
centre.
in 2007 UCL joined with the
Medical Research Council,
Cancer Research UK and the
Wellcome Trust to establish the UK Centre for
Medical Research and Innovation. This centre will be set on a site
in London between the British Library and St Pancras Eurostar
terminal, and will be one of the world’s largest medical research
centres, housing 1,500 scientists and support staff working on a
range of biomedical projects.'UCL in partnership for world-class
medical research centre: St Pancras land sale' in
UCL
News, 5 December 2007:
/www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0712/07120501>, accessed 24
January 2009
Student Accommodation
Many UCL students are accommodated in the college's own
halls of residence or other
accommodation, such as those below:
- Arthur Tattersall House (115–131 Gower Street)
- Astor College (99 Charlotte St)
- Campbell House East and West (Taviton Street)
- Ifor Evans & Max Rayne Student Residences (109 Camden
Road)
- Frances Gardner House and Langton Close (Gray's Inn Road)
- John Tovell House (89 & 93–7 Gower Street)
- John Dodgson House (Bidborough Street)
- Ramsay Hall
and Ian Baker House Student Residences(Maple
Street)
- Schafer House Student Residence (Drummond Street)
- James Lighthill House (Pentonville Road)
- Goldsmid House will reopen in brand new buildings for the
2008–2009 session, relocated from Oxford Street to Westminster.
(The building is named after Sir F. H. Goldsmid, a treasurer of the
University in the 19th century.)
Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year
undergraduates. The majority of
second and third-year students and
postgraduates find their own accommodation in
the private sector. This is partly due to the fact that
accommodation in and around
Central
London is often cheaper than university accommodation when
shared with friends or flat-mates.
There is also limited UCL accommodation available for married
students and those with children at Bernard Johnson House,
Hawkridge, Neil Sharp House and the University of London's Lilian
Penson Hall.
Intercollegiate Halls of Residence
UCL students are also eligible to apply for places in the
University of London intercollegiate
halls of residence. The halls are:
University College London Union
The union, founded in 1893, has a credible claim to be England's
oldest students' union. Today the union exists to provide a wide
range of services to UCL students. It is run by elected student
officers, and supports a range of services, including numerous
clubs and
societies,
sports facilities, and an advice service, as
well as a number of bars,
cafes and
shops.
Some examples of Clubs provided by the University College London
Union:
University College London Boat Club (both Men's and Women's
clubs)
UCL Cross Country and Athletics Club
University College London Dramatic Society
UCL Yoga and Meditation Society
UCL Krishna Consciousness Society
UCL Football Club (consisting of 7 teams)
UCL Rugby Club (both Men's and Women's as well as Medical School
clubs)
King's College London Rivalry
Main Article Student
Rags
UCL has a
long-running, mostly friendly, rivalry with King's
College London
within the University of London. UCL is
often referred to by students from the latter using nicknames such
as the "Godless Scum of Gower Street", in reference to a comment
made at the founding of KCL, which was based on Christian
principles. UCL students and staff also refer to King's as "Strand
Polytechnic" in a similar attitude. Historically the college
rivalry was known as "Rags".
KCL's mascot,
Reggie the
Lion, was lost for many years in the 1990s. It was recovered
after being found dumped in a field, restored at the cost of around
£15,000 and placed on display in the students' union. It is in a
glass case and filled with concrete to prevent theft, particularly
by UCL students who once castrated it. (KCL, to be fair, had also
stolen one UCL mascot, Phineas). It is often claimed that KCL
students played football with the embalmed head of
Jeremy Bentham. Although the head was indeed
stolen, the football story is a myth which is unsupported by
official UCL documentation about Bentham available next to his
display case (his Auto Icon) in the college cloisters. The head is
now kept in the college vaults.
A New Lobby
Within
the United
Kingdom
, UCL has been identified as part of a new group of
universities which has started to act as a self-conscious lobby and
pressure group: known commonly as the G5. According to the
Times Higher
Education Supplement (THES), the five institutions are the
LSE, Imperial College London
, University of Oxford
, University of Cambridge
and University College London, and it describes
them as the super-elite (as all five are already members of the
elite Russell Group).
The G5 have begun to meet regularly and formally to plan their own
path through the upheavals that are currently transforming British
higher education, and to lobby for their own particular interests
in maintaining the standards at the sharp end of tertiary education
in the UK.
It has been reported in the THES that, "The group, which calls
itself the G5, warns that without more money to support its
high-quality teaching, its members will turn away British
undergraduates and focus instead on overseas and postgraduate
students, whose fees cover most of the full cost of their courses.
The new group has been meeting in secret for a few months. Few
vice-chancellors know of its existence as a fully fledged grouping.
The G5's goal is to secure extra state cash above the £3,000
student
top-up fees which from 2006
covered the full costs of home and
European Union undergraduates on their
courses. The G5 group will make a case for special treatment for
its members."
Sir
Richard Sykes, then rector of
Imperial, said: "Imperial does not have any cheap courses. We will
press the government to recognise this or lift the [£3,000] cap [on
fees]. If they say our courses are too high quality and too
expensive, we will not reduce our quality. We will have to look at
expanding the number of postgraduates and overseas undergraduates
we take."
These five colleges have been noted to share the following
attributes which appear to have been the common binding factors:
strong research outputs, high teaching ratings, many famous names
in public life, a major impact on global affairs and policy, and
big international standing in academia.
They also have some
of the most influential and active student unions, with the overall
University of London Student Union standing out for notable
activism against successive governments, ranging from the 1968
storming of Downing
Street
, to more recent protests over the War on Iraq and student "top-up"
fees.
In June 2009, Sir Roy Anderson, the current rector of Imperial
College London, argued that, what he described as the top five
universities in the UK – "Oxford, Cambridge, the London School
of Economics, University College London and Imperial College
London" – should be allowed to independently set their tuition
fees. It was, he argued, the only way they could continue to
maintain their presently high standards.
Filming at UCL
Due to
its position within London and the historical nature of the
UCL Main
Building
and quad, UCL has been used as a location for film
and television recording.
Logo and Arms
Coat of arms of University College London
most universities will primarily use a logo on documents but will
still use their coat of arms on degree certificates
etc,
UCL seems to be content with exclusively using its logo. UCL does
have a coat of arms which depicts a raised bent arm dressed in
armour holding a green upturned open wreath.
The
blazon of these arms is:
Purpure, on a wreath of the colours Argent and Blue Celeste, an
arm in armour embowed Argent holding an upturned wreath of laurel
Vert, beneath which two branches of laurel Or crossed at the
nombril and bound with a bowed cord Or, beneath the nombril a motto
of Blue Celeste upon which Cuncti adsint meritaeque expectant
praemia palmae
The College's traditional sporting and academic colours of purple
and light blue are derived from its arms.
Gallery
Image:UCL
Portico Building.jpg|The UCL Main Building
is the centre of the UCL campusImage:UCL-94339958-M.jpg|The College
Cloisters inside the UCL Main Building
Image:UCL-94339714-M.jpg|The UCL Quad, part
of the main campus, in front of the UCL Main Building
Image:UCL-94340542-M.jpg|The Jeremy Bentham common room inside the
UCL Main
Building
Image:UCL Rockefeller building.jpg|The
Rockefeller Building on the corner of University Street and Gower
Street
Image:UCL Portico Building2.jpg|A night-time
view of the UCL Main
Building
's porticoImage:UCL Gower Street.jpg|UCL Entrance on
Gower
Street
and the Cruciform Building oppositeImage:UCL
Bedford Way.jpg|UCL Bedford Way - The building houses the
psychology department and some of the geography department.
It
adjoins the Institute of Education
Image:UCL Frances Gardner House.jpg|An
example of student accommodation - UCL's Newest Hall of Residence —
Frances Gardner House in Clerkenwell
Image:UCL Flaxman Gallery and
sculpture.jpg|The Flaxman Gallery, a collection of sculptures and
paintings by artist
John Flaxman is
located inside the 'main library' in the Octagon building under
UCL's central dome
Image:UCL-94335430-M.jpg|Ramsay Hall
of Residence, Maple Street, LondonImage:UCL
Flaxman Gallery and Jeremy Bentham.jpg|
Jeremy Bentham overseeing the construction of
UCL in the Flaxman gallery inside the 'main library'
Image:UCL Bentham
house.jpg|Bentham House, home to the UCL Faculty
of Laws
Image:UCL Institute of Archaeology.jpg|UCL
Institute of Archaeology,
on Gordon SquareImage:UCL Paul O'Gorman building.jpeg|The UCL
Cancer Institute's Paul O'Gorman building on Huntley
StreetImage:School of Slavonic and East European Studies.jpg|UCL
School of
Slavonic and East European Studies, on Taviton
street
Image:University College Hospital - New
Building - London - 020504.jpg|The new building and tower of
University
College Hospital
, seen from Euston Road
Image:UCL Schafer House.jpg|
Schafer House a
hall of residence of University College
London. It accommodates 369 students. It was opened in
1995.Image:UCL Adelaide.jpeg|The UCL School of Energy and Resources
building in Adelaide, South AustraliaImage:UCL Drayton
house.jpg|Drayton House, the Gordon Street home to the UCL Faculty
of Economics
References
-
http://www.fulbright.co.uk/fulbright-awards/for-us-citizens/postgraduate-student-awards/university-partners/ucl
- Campus location maps, University College London
- History of UCL
- UCL Bentham Project
- Landmarks
-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/sunday_times_university_guide/article4774040.ece?token=null&offset=24&page=3
- Degree Awarding, University College London
- UCL ACCOUNTS FOR 2008.
- UCL
Provost and President
- THE-QS World University Rankings TopUniversities.com
-
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/University_College_London
-
http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2009/indicators/employer_review/
- [1] in
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/good_university_guide/article526344.ece
-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/sunday_times_university_guide/article4765366.ece
- [2] in
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/aug/02/leadersandreply.mainsection
- http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0807/08071504
- World ranking rise for UCL in UCL
News, 20 August 2008, accessed 21 August 2008
- Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University 2009
- Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University 2008
- Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University 2007
- Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University 2006
- Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai
Jiao Tong University 2005
-
http://www.globaluniversitiesranking.org/images/banners/top-100(eng).pdf
-
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2009/may/12/university-league-table
-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/silva/news/news-articles/0909/09090301
-
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/Centres/NewCentres.htm
-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prosp-students/prospectus/maps/mathematics/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7946675.stm
- Facts and Figures
- 20th Nobel Prize for UCL community
- Sir William Ramsay: Noble Gas Pioneer—On the 100th
Anniversary of His Nobel Prize
- Faculty of Engineering Sciences
- Institute of Ophthalmology
- UCL Library Services - Sites
- http://library.ucl.ac.uk/F?RN=632723792
- UCL Library Services - Main Library
- UCL Library Services - Cruciform Library
- UCL Library Services - Environmental Studies
Library
- UCL Library Services - SSEES Library
- UCL Library Services - Special Collections
Library
- UCL Library Services - Special Collections A-Z
Directory
- UCL Library Services - Special Collections
Library
- UCL Library Services - Special Collections
Library
- 'UCL Eprints repository rankings' in UCL News (13
March 2008), http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0803/08031304
(accessed 1 August 2008)
- About UCL Eprints
http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/information.html (accessed 1 August
2008)
- http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/pages/
- UCL
Museums & Collections | Home
- Welcome
to The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Museums & Collections | Home
- UCL Museums & Collections
- UCL Medical School
- UCL Medical School
- UCLH Internet
- University College London Hospital
- University College Hospital Recent building work
due 2008
- Suspended Domain
- Accommodation
- University of London - Intercollegiate Halls
- UCL
Union
- Mayhem in the Metropolis: King's College versus University
College in Student Rags
- Mayhem in the Metropolis: King's College versus University
College in Student Rags
- Mayhem in the Metropolis: King's College versus University
College in Student Rags
- http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/right-column/ucl-views/bentham
-
http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2010377
-
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice.bak/staffStudentsAndAlumni/dailyHeadlines/06-02-04.htm
- Freeing universities to charge higher fees will be
a bargainTerence Kealey, The Telegraph, June 2009
- http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=506124
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/guyfwoodward/950670333/
External Links
- UCL's YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/ucltv