Imperial College London

Imperial College London (officially The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research universitylocated in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine. Formerly a constituent college of the federal University of London, Imperial became fully independent in 2007, the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Imperial's main campus is located in the South Kensington area of central London on the boundary between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster, with its main entrance on Exhibition Road. It has a number of other campuses in central London, including in Chelsea, Hammersmith and Paddington. With a total of 525,233 square metres of operational property, it has the largest estate of any higher education institution in the UK. Imperial is organised into four main academic units – Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Faculty of Engineering and the Imperial College Business School – within which there are over 40 departments, institutes and research centres.

Imperial has around 13,500 full-time students and 3,330 academic and research staff and had a total income of £694 million in 2009/10, of which £297 million was from research grants and contracts. Imperial is a major centre for biomedical research and is a founding member of the Imperial College Healthcare academic health science centre. It is ranked 24th in the world (and 5th in Europe) in the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities, 6th in the world (and 3rd in Europe) in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, and 8th in the world (and 3rd in Europe) in the 2012 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. There are currently 14 Nobel Prize winners and two Fields Medal winners amongst Imperial's alumni and current and former faculty.

Offiial Site:  imperial college london

Campus

The Natural History Museum on Exhibition Road

Imperial's main campus is in South Kensington, situated in an area with a high concentration of cultural and academic institutions known as Albertopolis, which also includes the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal College of Music, the Royal College of Art, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Albert Hall. The expansion of the South Kensington campus in the 1960s absorbed the site of the former Imperial Institute, designed by Thomas Collcutt, of which only the 287 foot (87 m) high Queen's Tower remains among the more modern buildings.

Imperial has two other major campuses – at Silwood Park (near Ascot in Berkshire) and at Wye (near Ashford in Kent). The Wye campus, some of it dating back to the 15th century, is currently vacant and available for sale or rent. The Imperial College NHS Trust has multiple hospitals throughout Greater London and various medic lectures are conducted within these hospitals, including St. Mary's Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital, Northwick Park Hospital & St. Mark's Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital. In 1997, the parliamentary Imperial College Act 1997 officially transferred all the obligations, powers and property of Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School to Imperial.

Extensive renovation continues throughout the College estate. Recent major projects include the Imperial College Business School, the Ethos sports centre, the Southside hall of residence and the Eastside hall of residence. Current major projects include the reconstruction of the south-eastern quadrant of the South Kensington campus.

Organisation and administration

Imperial College Business School entrance on Exhibition Road

Faculties and departments

Imperial’s research and teaching is organised within a network of faculties and academic departments. Imperial currently has the following three constituent faculties:

• Imperial College Faculty of Engineering
• Imperial College Faculty of Medicine
• Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences.

The Imperial College Business School, Graduate Schools, Department of Humanities and Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine exist as academic units outside of the faculty structure.

The humanities department's main purpose is to provide elective subjects and language courses outside the field of science for students in the other faculties and departments. Students are encouraged to take these classes either for credit or in their own time, and in some departments this is mandatory. Courses exist in a wide range of topics including philosophy, ethics in science and technology, history, modern literature and drama, art in the twentieth century, film studies. Language courses are available in French, German, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. The humanities department also runs a full-time course in scientific translation, and is home to the Science Communication Group which offers Masters degrees in Science Communication and Science Media Production for science graduates.