title: Turbocharger

text: Automobile manufacturers began research into turbocharged engines during the 1950s, however the problems of "turbo lag" and the bulky size of the turbocharger were not able to be solved at the time. The first turbocharged cars were the short-lived Chevrolet Corvair Monza and the Oldsmobile Jetfire, both introduced in 1962. Greater adoption of turbocharging in passenger cars began in the 1980s, as a way to increase the performance of smaller displacement engines.


title: Turbocharger

text: Like other forced induction devices, a compressor in the turbocharger pressurises the intake air before it enters the inlet manifold. In the case of a turbocharger, the compressor is powered by the kinetic energy of the engine's exhaust gases, which is extracted by the turbocharger's turbine.


title: Turbocharger

text: The turbine section (also called the "hot side" or "exhaust side" of the turbo) is where the rotational force is produced, in order to power the compressor (via a rotating shaft through the center of a turbo. After the exhaust has spun the turbine it continues into the exhaust and out of the vehicle.


title: Turbocharger

text: The turbine uses a series of blades to convert kinetic energy from the flow of exhaust gases to mechanical energy of a rotating shaft (which is used to power the compressor section). The turbine housings direct the gas flow through the turbine section, and the turbine itself can spin at speeds of up to 250,000 rpm. Some turbocharger designs are available with multiple turbine housing options, allowing a housing to be selected to best suit the engine's characteristics and the performance requirements.


title: Turbocharger

text: A turbocharger's performance is closely tied to its size, and the relative sizes of the turbine wheel and the compressor wheel. Large turbines typically require higher exhaust gas flow rates, therefore increasing turbo lag and increasing the boost threshold. Small turbines can produce boost quickly and at lower flow rates, but can be a limiting factor in the peak power produced by the engine. Various technologies, as described in the following sections, are often aimed at combining the benefits of both small turbines and large turbines.


title: Turbocharger

text: A twin-scroll turbocharger uses two separate exhaust gas inlets, to make use of the pulses in the flow of the exhaust gasses from each cylinder. In a standard (single-scroll) turbocharger, the exhaust gas from all cylinders are combined and enter the turbocharger via a single intake, which causes the gas pulses from each cylinder to interfere with each other. For a twin-scroll turbocharger, the cylinders are split into two groups in order to maximise the pulses. The exhaust manifold keeps these two groups of cylinders separated, then they travel through two separate spiral chambers ("scrolls") before entering the turbine housing via two separate nozzles. The scavenging effect of these gas pulses recovers more energy from the exhaust gases, minimizes parasitic back losses and improves responsiveness at low engine speeds.


title: Turbocharger

text: Another common feature of twin-scroll turbochargers is that the two nozzles are different sizes: the smaller nozzle is installed at a steeper angle and is used for low-rpm response, while the larger nozzle is less angled and optimised for times when high outputs are required.


title: Turbocharger

text: Variable-geometry turbochargers (also known as "variable-nozzle turbochargers") are used to alter the effective aspect ratio of the turbocharger as operating conditions change. This is done with the use of adjustable vanes located inside the turbine housing between the inlet and turbine, these vanes affect flow of gases towards the turbine. Some variable-geometry turbochargers use a rotary electric actuator to open and close the vanes, while others use a pneumatic actuator.


title: Turbocharger

text: If the turbine's aspect ratio is too large, the turbo will fail to create boost at low speeds; if the aspect ratio is too small, the turbo will choke the engine at high speeds, leading to high exhaust manifold pressures, high pumping losses, and ultimately lower power output. By altering the geometry of the turbine housing as the engine accelerates, the turbo's aspect ratio can be maintained at its optimum. Because of this, variable-geometry turbochargers often have reduced lag, a lower boost threshold, and greater efficiency at higher engine speeds. The benefit of variable-geometry turbochargers is that the optimum aspect ratio at low engine speeds is very different from that at high engine speeds.


title: Turbocharger

text: An electrically-assisted turbocharger combines a traditional exhaust-powered turbine with an electric motor, in order to reduce turbo lag. This differs from an electric supercharger, which solely use an electric motor to power the compressor.


title: Turbocharger

text: The compressor draws in outside air through the engine's intake system, pressurises it, then feeds it into the combustion chambers (via the inlet manifold). The compressor section of the turbocharger consists of an impeller, a diffuser and a volute housing. The operating characteristics of a compressor is described by the compressor map.


title: Turbocharger

text: Some turbochargers use a "ported shroud", whereby a ring of holes or circular grooves allows air to bleed around the compressor blades. Ported shroud designs can have greater resistance to compressor surge and can improve the efficiency of the compressor wheel.


title: Turbocharger

text: The center hub rotating assembly (CHRA) houses the shaft that connects the turbine to the compressor. A lighter shaft can help reduce turbo lag. The CHRA also contains a bearing to allow this shaft to rotate at high speeds speed with minimal friction.


title: Turbocharger

text: Some CHRAs are water-cooled and have pipes for the engine's coolant to flow through. One reason for water cooling is to protect the turbocharger's lubricating oil from overheating.


title: Turbocharger

text: The simplest type of turbocharger is the "free floating" turbocharger. This system would be able to achieve maximum boost at maximum engine revs and full throttle, however additional components are needed to produce an engine that is driveable in a range load and rpm conditions.


title: Turbocharger

text: Turbo lag refers to delaywhen the engine rpm is within the turbocharger's operating rangethat occurs between pressing the throttle and the turbocharger spooling up to provide boost pressure. This delay is due to the increasing exhaust gas flow (after the throttle is suddenly opened) taking time to spin up the turbine to speeds where boost is produced. The effect of turbo lag is reduced throttle response, in the form of a delay in the power delivery. Superchargers do not suffer from turbo lag, because the compressor mechanism is driven directly by the engine.


title: Turbocharger

text: A similar phenomenon that is often mistaken for turbo lag is the boost threshold. This is where the engine speed (rpm) is currently below the operating range of the turbocharger system, therefore the engine is unable to produce significant boost. At low rpm, the exhaust gas flow rate is unable to spin the turbine sufficiently.


title: Turbocharger

text: The boost threshold causes delays in the power delivery at low rpm (since the unboosted engine must accelerate the vehicle to increase the rpm above the boost threshold), while turbo lag causes delay in the power delivery at higher PRM.


title: Turbocharger

text: Some engines use multiple turbochargers, usually to reduce turbo lag, increase the range of rpm where boost is produced, or simplify the layout of the intake/exhaust system. The most common arrangement is twin turbochargers, however triple-turbo or quad-turbo arrangements have been occasionally used in production cars.


title: Turbocharger

text: The key difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger is that a supercharger is mechanically driven by the engine (often through a belt connected to the crankshaft) whereas a turbocharger is powered by the kinetic energy of the engine's exhaust gas. A turbocharger does not place a direct mechanical load on the engine, although turbochargers place exhaust back pressure on engines, increasing pumping losses.


title: Turbocharger

text: Supercharged engines are common in applications where throttle response is a key concern, and supercharged engines are less likely to heat soak the intake air.


title: Turbocharger

text: A combination of an exhaust-driven turbocharger and an engine-driven supercharger can mitigate the weaknesses of both. This technique is called "twincharging".


title: Turbocharger

text: In 2017, 27% of vehicles sold in the US were turbocharged. In Europe 67% of all vehicles were turbocharged in 2014. Historically, more than 90% of turbochargers were diesel, however, adoption in petrol engines is increasing. The companies which manufacture the most turbochargers in Europe and the U.S. are Garrett Motion (formerly Honeywell), BorgWarner and Mitsubishi Turbocharger.


title: Turbocharger

text: Failure of the seals will cause oil to leak into the cylinders causing blue-gray smoke. In diesel engines, this can cause an overspeed, a condition known as diesel engine runaway.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Alejandro González Iñárritu (; ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the human condition. His projects have garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades including four Academy Awards with a Special Achievement Award, three Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, two American Film Institute Awards, two Directors Guild of America Awards and a Producers Guild of America Award. His most notable films include "Amores perros" (2000), "21 Grams" (2003), "Babel" (2006), "Biutiful" (2010), "Birdman" (2014), and "The Revenant" (2015).


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu's first feature film, "Amores Perros" (2000), won the Critics' Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His next film, "21 Grams" (2003), was critically and commercially successful and received two Oscar nominations. For his 2006 film "Babel", Iñárritu won the Cannes Film Festival's Best Director Award, the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture Drama, and was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directing and Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. His fourth film, "Biutiful" (2010), received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2014, Iñárritu won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for "Birdman" (2014). The following year, he received a Best Director Oscar for "The Revenant" (2015), making him the third director ever (after John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz) to win back-to-back Academy Awards. In 2017, Iñárritu was awarded a Special Achievement Academy Award for his virtual reality installation "Carne y Arena".


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu is the first Mexican filmmaker to be nominated for either director or producer in the history of the Academy Awards, the first to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Picture, the first to receive the Best Director Award at Cannes, and the first to win a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing. He is also the first director to win consecutive DGA Awards. In 2019, Iñárritu became the first Latin American to serve as President of the Jury for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. That year he received an honorary doctorate from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2019, he was also made Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters in France. Iñárritu and Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are known in the film industry as "The Three Amigos".


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu was born on 15 August 1963 in Mexico City, the youngest of seven siblings, to Luz María Iñárritu and Héctor González Gama. His maternal grandfather, Alfredo Iñárritu y Ramírez de Aguilar, was a prominent lawyer, judge, and justice of the Supreme Court of Mexico with partial Basque origins. Héctor was a banker who owned a ranch, but went bankrupt when Iñárritu was five. A poor student, Iñárritu was expelled from high school at the age of 16 or 17 due to poor grades and misbehavior. He briefly ran off with a girl from a wealthy family to Acapulco, having been influenced by the Miloš Forman film "Hair", but returned to Mexico City after a week.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Soon after, Iñárritu left home and worked as a sailor on cargo boats, taking two trips at the ages of 16 and 18, sailing through the Mississippi River and then visiting Europe and Africa. With $1,000 supplied by his father, Iñárritu stayed in Europe for a year on the second trip. He has noted that these early travels as a young man have had a great influence on him as a filmmaker, and the settings of his films have often been in the places he visited during this period. After his travels, Iñárritu returned to Mexico City and majored in communications at Universidad Iberoamericana.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu began his career in 1984 as a radio host at the Mexican radio station WFM, the country's most popular rock music station, where he "pieced together playlists into a loose narrative arc". He worked with and interviewed artists like Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Elton John, Bob Geldof and Carlos Santana. He also wrote and broadcast small audio stories and storytelling promos. He later became the youngest producer for Televisa, the largest mass media company in Latin America. From 1987 to 1989, he composed music for six Mexican feature films. During this time, Iñárritu became acquainted with Mexican writer Guillermo Arriaga, beginning their screenwriting collaborations. Iñárritu has stated that he believes music has had a bigger influence on him as an artist than film itself.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In the early 1990s, Iñárritu created Z Films, a production company, with Raul Olvera in Mexico. Under Z Films, he started writing, producing and directing short films and advertisements. Making the final transition into TV and film directing, he studied under well-known theater director Ludwik Margules, as well as Judith Weston in Los Angeles. In 1995, Iñárritu wrote and directed his first TV pilot for Z Films, called "Detrás del dinero", or "Behind the Money", starring Miguel Bosé.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2000, Iñárritu directed his first feature film "Amores perros", written by Guillermo Arriaga. "Amores perros" explored Mexican society in Mexico City told via three intertwining stories. In 2000, "Amores perros" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Critics' Week Grand Prize. It was the film debut of actor Gael García Bernal, who would later appear in "Babel" and the Iñárritu-produced Mexican film "Rudo y Cursi". "Amores perros" was


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: the first installment in Iñárritu's and Arriaga's thematic "Death trilogy", and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: After the success of "Amores Perros", Iñárritu and Arriaga revisited the intersected-stories structure of "Amores perros" in Iñárritu's second feature film, "21 Grams" (2003). The film starred Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, where Penn received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. At the 76th Academy Awards, Del Toro and Watts received nominations for their performances.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu embarked on his third and last film that formed the "Death Trilogy", "Babel" (2006), written again by Arriaga. "Babel" comprises four interrelated stories set in Morocco, Mexico, the United States, and Japan, in four different languages. The film stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Adriana Barraza, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi and Kōji Yakusho. The rest of the cast comprised non-professional actors. The film competed at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where Iñárritu received the Best Director Award (Prix de la mise en scène), becoming the first Mexican-born director to win the award.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: "Babel" was a critical and box office success. It received seven nominations at the 79th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Gustavo Santaolalla, the film's composer, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama in 2007. Iñárritu became the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Directing and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing. After this third feature film collaboration with writing partner Arriaga, Iñárritu and he professionally parted ways, following Iñárritu's barring of Arriaga from the set during filming. Arriaga told the "Los Angeles Times" in 2009, "It had to come to an end, but I still respect [González Iñárritu]."


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2010, Iñárritu directed and produced "Biutiful", starring Javier Bardem, written by Iñárritu, Armando Bó Jr., and Nicolás Giacobone. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2010. Bardem went on to win Best Actor (shared with Elio Germano for "La nostra vita") at Cannes. "Biutiful" is Iñárritu's first film in his native Spanish since his debut feature "Amores perros". The film was nominated at the 2011 Golden Globes for Best Foreign Language Film, and at the BAFTA Awards for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Actor. For the second time in his career, Iñárritu's film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards; Javier Bardem's performance was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2014, Iñárritu ultimately won three Academy Awards for directing, co-writing and co-producing Best Picture winner "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)", starring Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis, and Andrea Riseborough. The film is an existential dark comedy exploring the ego of a forgotten superhero actor, experienced as if filmed on a single shot. It was the first time a Mexican Filmmaker received Best Picture at the Academy Awards. He also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, a DGA Award and a PGA Award for the film.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: The following year, Iñárritu directed "The Revenant", initially adapted by Mark L. Smith, before joined the writing process, based on Michael Punke's novel of the same name. The film is a remake of the film "Man in the Wilderness" ( 1971) and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, and Will Poulter. It is a "gritty" 19th-century period drama-thriller about fur trapper Hugh Glass, a real person who joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company on a "journey into the wild" and was robbed and abandoned after being mauled by a grizzly bear. The film considers the nature and stresses on relationships under the duress of the wilderness, and issues of revenge and pardon via Glass's pursuit of the man who was responsible for his hardship. "The Revenant" took nine months to shoot. With "The Revenant" being a critical and commercial success, Iñárritu won a second consecutive Oscar for Best Director and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, winning Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Actor. Iñárritu is one of only three directors to ever win consecutive Oscars, and the first to do it in 65 years. He was also nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, winning three, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director; received nine Critics' Choice Movie Awards nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director; five BAFTAs including Best Picture and Best Director; and a DGA Award, making history as the first person to ever win two in a row.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: "The One Percent", originally planned as an upcoming American television drama series created and written by Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Nicolás Giacobone and Armando Bó, was eventually postponed on early March 2017 due to Alejandro feeling burnt out after the production of "The Revenant". The quartet, who also collaborated on "Birdman", were to serve as executive producers. Iñárritu was set to direct the first two episodes and set the visual style of the show.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2020, it was reported that Iñárritu would write, direct, and produce a new film in Mexico, his first film made there since "Amores Perros" 20 years previously, and his third Spanish-Language film after "Amores Perros" and "Biutiful". The film entitled "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths", stars Daniel Giménez Cacho and Griselda Siciliani.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: From 2001 to 2011, Iñárritu directed several short films. In 2001, he directed an 11-minute film segment for "11'09"01 September 11" - which is composed of several short films that explore the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from different points of view around the world. In 2007, he made "ANNA", part of French anthology film "Chacun son cinéma", which screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. "Chacun son cinéma", a collection of 33 short films by 35 renowned film directors representing 25 countries, was produced for the 60th anniversary of the film festival. In 2012, Iñárritu made the experimental short film "Naran Ja: One Act Orange Dance", inspired by L.A Dance Project's premiere performance, featuring excerpts from the new choreography Benjamin Millepied crafted for "Moving Parts". The story takes place in a secluded, dusty space and centers around LADP dancer Julia Eichten.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2002, Iñárritu directed "Powder Keg", an episode for the BMW short film series "The Hire", starring Clive Owen as the driver and Stellan Skarsgård as a war photographer. It won the Cannes Gold Lion Advertising Award. In 2010, Iñárritu directed "Write the Future", a football-themed commercial for Nike ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which went on to win the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. In 2012, he directed Procter & Gamble's "Best Job" commercial spot for the 2012 Olympic Ceremonies. It won the Best Primetime Commercial Emmy at Creative Arts Emmy Awards and the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: On 4 October 2012, Facebook released an Iñárritu-directed brand film titled "The Things That Connect Us" to celebrate the social network reaching one billion users.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu's virtual reality project "Carne y Arena" was the first ever VR installation presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017. Carne y Arena was also presented, at LACMA, Washington DC and featured at the Prada Foundation in Milan. Additionally, "Carne y Arena" was awarded the first Special Achievement Academy Award in over 20 years at the Academy's 9th Annual Governors Awards.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñarritu's cinematic influences include Max Ophüls, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergio Leone, Martin Scorsese, and John Cassavetes. However, his influences are not limited to film and come from a variety of sources.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu has been recognized with multiple awards for his films, including five Academy Awards, two Directors Guild of America Awards, a Producers Guild of America Award, three British Academy Film Awards, three AACTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Independent Spirit Awards, two American Film Institute Awards, and three Cannes Film Festival Award. He is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing, and the first to win the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, Iñárritu won, among many other accolades, the Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directing, the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture, and the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Directing for "Birdman", becoming the first Mexican to win three Academy awards. In 2016, Iñárritu won the Academy Award for Best Director for his work on "The Revenant", marking the first time in 65 years that a director has won the award in two consecutive years. Iñárritu is the third director to accomplish this feat, following John Ford and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2006, Iñárritu was honored at the Gotham Awards' World Cinema Tribute, alongside fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro. In 2011, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Zurich Film Festival. In 2015, Iñárritu received the Sundance Institute's Vanguard Leadership Award for the "originality and independent spirit" of his films. He was also honored by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art at its Art + Film Gala.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: , each of Iñárritu's feature films, with the exception of "Amores perros", showcases at least one Academy Award nominated performance.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: Iñárritu is married to Maria Eladia Hagerman, an editor and graphic designer. They have a daughter, Maria Eladia, and a son, Eliseo.


title: Alejandro González Iñárritu

text: In 2009, Iñárritu, along with several filmmakers and actors, signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski following his arrest in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."


title: University College London

text: University College London, which operates as UCL, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. It is a member institution of the federal University of London, and is the second-largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment and the largest by postgraduate enrolment.


title: University College London

text: Established in 1826, as London University, by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham, UCL was the first university institution to be established in London, and the first in England to be entirely secular and to admit students regardless of their religion. UCL also makes contested claims to being the third-oldest university in England and the first to admit women. In 1836, UCL became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London, which was granted a royal charter in the same year. It has grown through mergers, including with the Institute of Ophthalmology (in 1995), the Institute of Neurology (in 1997), the Royal Free Hospital Medical School (in 1998), the Eastman Dental Institute (in 1999), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (in 1999), the School of Pharmacy (in 2012) and the Institute of Education (in 2014).


title: University College London

text: UCL has its main campus in the Bloomsbury area of central London, with a number of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London and satellite campuses at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London and in Doha, Qatar. UCL is organised into 11 constituent faculties, within which there are over 100 departments, institutes and research centres. UCL operates several museums and collections in a wide range of fields, including the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, and administers the annual Orwell Prize in political writing. In 2019/20, UCL had around 43,840 students and 16,400 staff (including around 7,100 academic staff and 840 professors) and had a total income of £1.54 billion, of which £468 million was from research grants and contracts. The university generates around £10 billion annually for the UK economy, primarily through the spread of its research and knowledge (£4 billion) and the impact of its own spending (£3 billion).


title: University College London

text: UCL is a member of numerous academic organisations, including the Russell Group and the League of European Research Universities, and is part of UCL Partners, the world's largest academic health science centre. It is considered part of the "golden triangle" of research-intensive universities in southeast England. UCL has publishing and commercial activities including UCL Press, UCL Business and UCL Consultants.


title: University College London

text: UCL has many notable alumni, including the founder of Mauritius, the first Prime Minister of Japan, and one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. UCL academics discovered five of the naturally occurring noble gases, discovered hormones, invented the vacuum tube, and made several foundational advances in modern statistics. , 30 Nobel Prize winners and three Fields medallists have been affiliated with UCL as alumni, faculty or researchers.


title: University College London

text: UCL was founded on 11 February 1826 under the name London University, as an alternative to the Anglican universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London University's first warden was Leonard Horner, who was the first scientist to head a British university.


title: University College London

text: Despite the commonly held belief that the philosopher Jeremy Bentham was the founder of UCL, his direct involvement was limited to the purchase of share No. 633, at a cost of £100 paid in nine instalments between December 1826 and January 1830. In 1828, he did nominate a friend to sit on the council, and in 1827, attempted to have his disciple John Bowring appointed as the first professor of English or History, but on both occasions his candidates were unsuccessful. This suggests that while his ideas may have been influential, he himself was less so. However, Bentham is today commonly regarded as the "spiritual father" of UCL, as his radical ideas on education and society were the inspiration to the institution's founders, particularly the Scotsmen James Mill (1773–1836) and Henry Brougham (1778–1868).


title: University College London

text: In 1827, the chair of political economy at London University was created, with John Ramsay McCulloch as the first incumbent, establishing one of the first departments of economics in England. In 1828, the university became the first in England to offer English as a subject and the teaching of Classics and medicine began. In 1830, London University founded the London University School, which would later become University College School. In 1833, the university appointed Alexander Maconochie, secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, as the first professor of geography in the British Isles. In 1834, University College Hospital (originally North London Hospital) opened as a teaching hospital for the university's medical school.


title: University College London

text: In 1836, London University was incorporated by royal charter under the name "University College, London". On the same day, the University of London was created by royal charter as a degree-awarding examining board for students from affiliated schools and colleges, with University College and King's College, London being named in the charter as the first two affiliates.


title: University College London

text: The Slade School of Fine Art was founded as part of University College in 1871, following a bequest from Felix Slade.


title: University College London

text: In 1878, the University of London gained a supplemental charter making it the first British university to be allowed to award degrees to women. The same year, UCL admitted women to the faculties of Arts and Law and of Science, although women remained barred from the faculties of Engineering and of Medicine (with the exception of courses on public health and hygiene). While UCL claims to have been the first university in England to admit women on equal terms to men, from 1878, the University of Bristol also makes this claim, having admitted women from its foundation (as a college) in 1876. Armstrong College, a predecessor institution of Newcastle University, also allowed women to enter from its foundation in 1871, although none actually enrolled until 1881. Women were finally admitted to medical studies during the First World War in 1917, although limitations were placed on their numbers after the war ended.


title: University College London

text: In 1898, Sir William Ramsay discovered the elements krypton, neon and xenon whilst professor of chemistry at UCL.


title: University College London

text: In 1900, the University of London was reconstituted as a federal university with new statutes drawn up under the University of London Act 1898. UCL, along with a number of other colleges in London, became a school of the University of London. While most of the constituent institutions retained their autonomy, UCL was merged into the university in 1907 under the University College London (Transfer) Act 1905 and lost its legal independence. Its formal name became "University of London, University College", although for most informal and external purposes the name "University College, London" (or the initialism UCL) was still used.


title: University College London

text: 1900 also saw the decision to appoint a salaried head of the college. The first incumbent was Carey Foster, who served as Principal (as the post was originally titled) from 1900 to 1904. He was succeeded by Gregory Foster (no relation), and in 1906 the title was changed to Provost to avoid confusion with the principal of the University of London. Gregory Foster remained in post until 1929. In 1906, the Cruciform Building was opened as the new home for University College Hospital. UCL opened the first department and chair of chemical engineering in the UK, funded by the Ramsay Memorial Fund in 1923.


title: University College London

text: As it acknowledged and apologized for in 2021, UCL played "a fundamental role in the development, propagation and legitimisation of eugenics" during the first half of the 20th century. Among the prominent eugenicists who taught at UCL were Francis Galton, who coined the term "eugenics", and Karl Pearson, and eugenics conferences were held at UCL until 2017.


title: University College London

text: UCL sustained considerable bomb damage during the Second World War, including the complete destruction of the Great Hall, the Carey Foster Physics Laboratory and the Ramsay Laboratory. Fires gutted the library and destroyed much of the main building, including the dome. The departments were dispersed across the country to Aberystwyth, Bangor, Gwynedd, Cambridge, Oxford, Rothamsted near Harpenden, Hertfordshire and Sheffield, with the administration at Stanstead Bury near Ware, Hertfordshire. The first UCL student magazine, "Pi", was published for the first time on 21 February 1946. The Institute of Jewish Studies relocated to UCL in 1959.


title: University College London

text: The Mullard Space Science Laboratory was established in 1967. In 1973, Peter Kirstein's research group at UCL became one of two international nodes on the ARPANET. UCL's interconnection between the ARPANET and early British academic networks was the first international resource sharing network. UCL adopted TCP/IP in 1982, a year ahead of ARPANET, and played a significant role in the very earliest experimental Internet work.


title: University College London

text: Although UCL was among the first universities to admit women on the same terms as men, in 1878, the college's senior common room, the Housman Room, remained men-only until 1969. After two unsuccessful attempts, a motion was passed that ended segregation by sex at UCL. This was achieved by Brian Woledge (Fielden Professor of French at UCL from 1939 to 1971) and David Colquhoun, at that time a young lecturer in pharmacology.


title: University College London

text: In 1976, a new charter restored UCL's legal independence, although still without the power to award its own degrees. Under this charter the college became formally known as "University College London". This name abandoned the comma used in its earlier name of "University College, London".


title: University College London

text: In 1986, UCL merged with the Institute of Archaeology. In 1988, UCL merged with the Institute of Laryngology & Otology, the Institute of Orthopaedics, the Institute of Urology & Nephrology and Middlesex Hospital Medical School.


title: University College London

text: In 1993, a reorganisation of the University of London meant that UCL and other colleges gained direct access to government funding and the right to confer University of London degrees themselves. This led to UCL being regarded as a "de facto" university in its own right.


title: University College London

text: In 1994, the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust was established. UCL merged with the College of Speech Sciences and the Institute of Ophthalmology in 1995, the Institute of Child Health and the School of Podiatry in 1996 and the Institute of Neurology in 1997. In 1998, UCL merged with the Royal Free Hospital Medical School to create the Royal Free and University College Medical School (renamed the UCL Medical School in October 2008). In 1999, UCL merged with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the Eastman Dental Institute.


title: University College London

text: The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, the first university department in the world devoted specifically to reducing crime, was founded in 2001.


title: University College London

text: Proposals for a merger between UCL and Imperial College London were announced in 2002. The proposal provoked strong opposition from UCL teaching staff and students and the AUT union, which criticised "the indecent haste and lack of consultation", leading to its abandonment by UCL provost Sir Derek Roberts. The blogs that helped to stop the merger are preserved, though some of the links are now broken: see David Colquhoun's blog and the Save UCL blog, which was run by David Conway, a postgraduate student in the department of Hebrew and Jewish studies.


title: University College London

text: The London Centre for Nanotechnology was established in 2003 as a joint venture between UCL and Imperial College London. They were later joined by King's College London in 2018.


title: University College London

text: Since 2003, when UCL professor David Latchman became master of the neighbouring Birkbeck, he has forged closer relations between these two University of London colleges, and personally maintains departments at both. Joint research centres include the UCL/Birkbeck Institute for Earth and Planetary Sciences, the UCL/Birkbeck/IoE Centre for Educational Neuroscience, the UCL/Birkbeck Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, and the Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging.


title: University College London

text: In 2005, UCL was finally granted its own taught and research degree awarding powers and all UCL students registered from 2007/08 qualified with UCL degrees. Also in 2005, UCL adopted a new corporate branding under which the name University College London was replaced by the initialism UCL in all external communications. In the same year, a major new £422 million building was opened for University College Hospital on Euston Road, the UCL Ear Institute was established and a new building for the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies was opened.


title: University College London

text: In 2007, the UCL Cancer Institute was opened in the newly constructed Paul O'Gorman Building. In August 2008, UCL formed UCL Partners, an academic health science centre, with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. In 2008, UCL established the UCL School of Energy & Resources in Adelaide, Australia, the first campus of a British university in the country. The school was based in the historic Torrens Building in Victoria Square and its creation followed negotiations between UCL Vice Provost Michael Worton and South Australian Premier Mike Rann.


title: University College London

text: In 2009, the Yale UCL Collaborative was established between UCL, UCL Partners, Yale University, Yale School of Medicine and Yale – New Haven Hospital. It is the largest collaboration in the history of either university, and its scope has subsequently been extended to the humanities and social sciences.


title: University College London

text: In June 2011, the mining company BHP Billiton agreed to donate AU$10 million to UCL to fund the establishment of two energy institutes – the Energy Policy Institute, based in Adelaide, and the Institute for Sustainable Resources, based in London.


title: University College London

text: In November 2011, UCL announced plans for a £500 million investment in its main Bloomsbury campus over 10 years, as well as the establishment of a new 23-acre campus next to the Olympic Park in Stratford in the East End of London. It revised its plans of expansion in East London and in December 2014 announced to build a campus (UCL East) covering 11 acres and provide up to 125,000m of space on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. UCL East will be part of plans to transform the Olympic Park into a cultural and innovation hub, where UCL will open its first school of design, a centre of experimental engineering and a museum of the future, along with a living space for students.


title: University College London

text: The School of Pharmacy, University of London merged with UCL on 1 January 2012, becoming the UCL School of Pharmacy within the Faculty of Life Sciences. In May 2012, UCL, Imperial College London and the semiconductor company Intel announced the establishment of the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities, a London-based institute for research into the future of cities.


title: University College London

text: In August 2012, UCL received criticism for advertising an unpaid research position; it subsequently withdrew the advert.


title: University College London

text: UCL and the Institute of Education formed a strategic alliance in October 2012, including co-operation in teaching, research and the development of the London schools system. In February 2014, the two institutions announced their intention to merge, and the merger was completed in December 2014.


title: University College London

text: In September 2013, a new Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) was established within the Faculty of Engineering, one of several initiatives within the university to increase and reflect upon the links between research and public sector decision-making.


title: University College London

text: In October 2013, it was announced that the Translation Studies Unit of Imperial College London would move to UCL, becoming part of the UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society. In December 2013, it was announced that UCL and the academic publishing company Elsevier would collaborate to establish the UCL Big Data Institute. In January 2015, it was announced that UCL had been selected by the UK government as one of the five founding members of the Alan Turing Institute (together with the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and Warwick), an institute to be established at the British Library to promote the development and use of advanced mathematics, computer science, algorithms and big data.


title: University College London

text: In August 2015, the Department of Management Science and Innovation was renamed as the School of Management and plans were announced to greatly expand UCL's activities in the area of business-related teaching and research. The school moved from the Bloomsbury campus to One Canada Square in Canary Wharf in 2016.


title: University College London

text: UCL established the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) in 2015 to promote interdisciplinary research in humanities and social sciences. The annual Orwell Prize for political writing moved to the IAS in 2016.


title: University College London

text: In June 2016, it was reported in "Times Higher Education" that as a result of administrative errors hundreds of students who studied at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute between 2005 and 2006 and 2013–14 had been given the wrong marks, leading to an unknown number of students being attributed with the wrong qualifications and, in some cases, being failed when they should have passed their degrees. A report by UCL's Academic Committee Review Panel noted that, according to the institute's own review findings, senior members of UCL staff had been aware of issues affecting students' results but had not taken action to address them. The Review Panel concluded that there had been an apparent lack of ownership of these matters amongst the institute's senior staff.


title: University College London

text: In December 2016, it was announced that UCL would be the hub institution for a new £250 million national dementia research institute, to be funded with £150 million from the Medical Research Council and £50 million each from Alzheimer's Research UK and the Alzheimer's Society.


title: University College London

text: In May 2017, it was reported that staff morale was at "an all time low", with 68% of members of the academic board who responded to a survey disagreeing with the statement "UCL is well managed" and 86% with "the teaching facilities are adequate for the number of students". Michael Arthur, the provost and president, linked the results to the "major change programme" at UCL. He admitted that facilities were under pressure following growth over the past decade, but said that the issues were being addressed through the development of UCL East and rental of other additional space.


title: University College London

text: In October 2017, UCL's council voted to apply for university status while remaining part of the University of London. UCL's application to become a university was subject to Parliament passing a bill to amend the statutes of the University of London, which received royal assent on 20 December 2018.


title: University College London

text: The UCL Adelaide satellite campus closed in December 2017, with academic staff and student transferring to the University of South Australia. UniSA and UCL are offering a joint masters qualification in Science in Data Science (international).


title: University College London

text: In 2018, UCL opened "UCL at Here East", at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, offering courses jointly between the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and the Faculty of Engineering Sciences. The campus offers a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate master's degrees, with the first undergraduate students, on a new Engineering and Architectural Design MEng, starting in September 2018. It was announced in August 2018 that a £215 million contract for construction of the largest building in the "UCL East" development, Marshgate 1, had been awarded to Mace, with building to begin in 2019 and be completed by 2022.


title: University College London

text: In 2017, UCL disciplined an IT administrator who was also the University and College Union (UCU) branch secretary for refusing to take down an unmoderated staff mailing list. An employment tribunal subsequently ruled that he was engaged in union activities and thus this disciplinary action was unlawful. , UCL is appealing this ruling and the UCU congress has declared this to be a "dispute of national significance".


title: University College London

text: In 2021, UCL formed a strategic partnership with Facebook AI Research (FAIR), including the creation of a new PhD programme.


title: University College London

text: UCL is primarily based in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, in Central London. The main campus is located around Gower Street and includes the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences, economics, geography, history, languages, mathematics, management, philosophy and physics departments, the preclinical facilities of the UCL Medical School, the London Centre for Nanotechnology, the Slade School of Fine Art, the UCL Union, the main UCL Library, the UCL Science Library, the Bloomsbury Theatre, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, the Grant Museum of Zoology and the affiliated University College Hospital. Close by in Bloomsbury are the UCL Cancer Institute, the UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, the UCL Faculty of the Built Environment (The Bartlett), the UCL Faculty of Laws, the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the UCL Institute of Education, the UCL School of Pharmacy, the UCL School of Public Policy and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.


title: University College London

text: The area around Queen Square in Bloomsbury, close by to the main campus, is a hub for brain-related research and healthcare, with the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and UCL Institute of Neurology located in the area along with the affiliated National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and the affiliated Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children are located adjacently, forming a hub for paediatric research and healthcare. The UCL Ear Institute, the UCL Eastman Dental Institute and the affiliated Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and Eastman Dental Hospital are located nearby in east Bloomsbury along Gray's Inn Road and form a hub for research and healthcare in audiology and dentistry respectively.


title: University College London

text: Historical UCL buildings in Bloomsbury include the grade I listed UCL Main Building, including the original Wilkins building designed by William Wilkins, and, directly opposite on Gower Street, the grade II listed Cruciform Building, the last major building designed by Alfred Waterhouse.


title: University College London

text: In 2014, it was announced that UCL would be building an additional campus at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, referred to as UCL East, as part of the development of the so-called "Olympicopolis" site at the southern edge of the park. UCL master planners were appointed in spring 2015, and the first University building was, at that time, estimated to be completed in time for academic year 2019/20.


title: University College London

text: It was revealed in June 2016 that the UCL East expansion could see the university grow to 60,000 students. The proposed rate of growth was reported to be causing concern, with calls for it to be slowed down to ensure the university could meet financial stability targets.


title: University College London

text: Outline planning permission for UCL East was submitted in May 2017 by the London Legacy Development Corporation and UCL, and granted in March 2018. Construction of the first phase of buildings is (as of March 2018) expected to begin in 2019 with the first building (Pool Street West) expected (at the time) to be completed for the start of the 2021 academic year and the second building (Marshgate 1) opening in phases from September 2022. As of March 2018, phase 1 is intended to have 50,000 m of space, and to house 4,000 extra students and 260 extra academic staff, while the entire UCL East campus, when completed, is expected to have 180,000 m of space, 40% of the size of UCL's central London campus. The outline planning permission is for up to 190,800 m of space with up to 160,060 m of academic development and research space (including up to 16,000 m of commercial research space), up to 50,880 m of student accommodation, and up to 4,240 m of retail space. According to the planning documents, construction of phase 2 (Pool Street East and Marshfield 2, 3 and 4) is expected to begin in 2030 and be completed by 2034, and the whole project will support 2,337 academic staff and 11,169 students. The campus will include residences for up to 1,800 students. In June 2018, UCL revealed that the UK government would be providing £100 million of funding for UCL East as part of its £151 million contribution to the £1.1 billion redevelopment of the Olympic Park as a cultural and education district to be known as the East Bank. Construction work on UCL East began on 2 July 2019 with a ground breaking ceremony by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and work on Pool Street West began on 28 February 2020.


title: University College London

text: The first building at UCL East, renamed One Pool Street, was due to open in September 2022. However, this did not occur as planned, with students being relocated to other accommodation on short notice. According to the university, this was due to "supply chain challenges", leading to a delay in the building being handed over by the contractors.


title: University College London

text: Elsewhere in Central London are the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology adjacent to Moorfields Eye Hospital in Clerkenwell, the UCL Institute of Child Health adjacent to Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital and the Whittington Hospital campuses of the UCL Medical School, and a number of other associated teaching hospitals. The UCL School of Management is on levels 38 and 50 of One Canada Square in the financial district of Canary Wharf. The UCL Observatory is in Mill Hill and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory is based in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey. The UCL Athletics Ground is in Shenley, Hertfordshire.


title: University College London

text: The two main bodies in UCL's governance structure are the council and the academic board, both of which are established by the royal charter and with powers defined by the statutes. There is also a University Management Committee, which is the executive committee responsible for the day-to-day operations of the institution.


title: University College London

text: UCL's council comprises 20 members, of whom 11 are members external to UCL; seven are UCL academic staff, including the provost, three UCL professors and three non-professorial staff; and two are UCL students. The chair is appointed by council for a term not normally exceeding five years. The chair is "ex officio" chair of the honorary degrees and fellowships committee, nominations committee and remuneration and strategy committee. The current chair of the council is international businessman and UCL alumnus Victor Chu.


title: University College London

text: The academic board plays a role similar to the senate in other institutions. It is the senior academic body responsible for advising council on academic matters and also elects academic members to council.


title: University College London

text: UCL's principal academic and administrative officer is the President and Provost, who is also UCL's designated 'Accountable Officer' for reporting to the Office for Students on behalf of UCL. The provost is appointed by Council after consultation with the academic board, and is "ex officio" a member of council and chair of the academic board. The president and provost since January 2021 is Michael Spence, formerly vice chancellor of The University of Sydney, who replaced Michael Arthur.


title: University College London

text: Vice-provosts are appointed by the provost, through the council, to assist and advise the provost as required. The vice-provosts are members of the provost's senior management team. There are presently six vice-provosts (for education, enterprise, health, international, research, and operations).


title: University College London

text: The deans of UCL's faculties are appointed by the council and, together with the vice-provosts and the director of finance and business affairs, form the members of the provost's senior management team. The deans' principal duties include advising the provost and vice-provosts on academic strategy, staffing matters and resources for academic departments within their faculty; overseeing curricula and programme management at faculty level; liaising with faculty tutors on undergraduate admissions and student academic matters; overseeing examination matters at faculty level; and co-ordinating faculty views on matters relating to education and information support.


title: University College London

text: UCL's research and teaching is organised within a network of faculties and academic departments. Faculties and academic departments are formally established by the UCL Council, the governing body of UCL, on the advice of the academic board, which is UCL's senior academic authority. UCL is a comprehensive university with teaching and research across the full range of the arts, humanities, social sciences, physical, biological and medical sciences, engineering and the built environment, although it does not currently have a veterinary, music, drama or nursing school. UCL is currently organised into the following 11 constituent faculties:


title: University College London

text: To facilitate greater interdisciplinary interaction in research and teaching UCL also has four strategic faculty groupings:


title: University College London

text: UCL operates a number of disciplinary-specific research centres in partnership with other research institutions and private enterprises. These include:


title: University College London

text: The UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies (CBT) is an academic research centre involving academics from eight UCL Departments. It was founded in 2015 by Paolo Tasca, and focuses on research into the effects of Distributed Ledger Technologies and Blockchain on the global socio-economic systems and into the promotion of safe and organic development and adoption of Blockchain-based platforms.


title: University College London

text: Since 2018, the centre has been part of Ripple Labs' University Blockchain Research Initiative, under which Ripple is supporting research and development in blockchain and related technologies at a number of universities around the world by providing financial and technical resources and by collaborating on projects.


title: University College London

text: The London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) is a multidisciplinary research centre in physical and biomedical nanotechnology based at UCL's campus in Bloomsbury. It is a partnership between UCL, Imperial College London and King's College London. The LCN was established as a joint venture between UCL and Imperial College London in 2003, and King's College London joined the LCN in 2018.


title: University College London

text: The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership was established at UCL with the support of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. It incorporates two earlier projects: the "Legacies of British Slave-ownership project" (2009–2012) and the "Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership" 1763–1833 project (2013–2015).


title: University College London

text: The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour (SWC) is a neuroscience research centre established at UCL with funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Wellcome Trust and opened in 2016.


title: University College London

text: In the financial year ended 31 July 2020, UCL had a total income (excluding share of joint ventures) of £1.54 billion (2018/19 – £1.49 billion) and a total expenditure of £1.34 billion (2018/19 – £1.67 billion). Key sources of income included £467.7 million from research grants and contracts (2018/19 – £481.1 million), £613.7 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2018/19 – £564.9 million), £227.9 million from funding body grants (2018/19 – £213.5 million) and £26.6 million from donations and endowments (2018/19 – £40.5 million). At year end UCL had endowments of £143.2 million (31 July 2019 – £138.7 million) and total net assets of £1.49 billion (31 July 2019 – £1.29 million).


title: University College London

text: In 2014/15, UCL had the third-highest total income of any British university (after the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford), and the third-highest income from research grants and contracts (after the University of Oxford and Imperial College London). For the 2015/16 academic year, UCL was allocated a total of £171.37 million for teaching and research from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the highest amount allocated to any English university, of which £39.76 million is for teaching and £131.61 million is for research. According to a survey published by the Sutton Trust, UCL had the eighth-largest endowment of any British university in 2012.


title: University College London

text: UCL launched a 10-year, £300 million fundraising appeal in October 2004, at the time the largest appeal target set by a university in the United Kingdom. UCL launched a new £600 million fundraising campaign in September 2016 titled ""It's All Academic – The Campaign for UCL"".


title: University College London

text: In April 2016, UCL signed a £280 million 30-year loan with the European Investment Bank, the largest loan ever borrowed by a UK university and largest ever loan by the EIB to a university. The monies are to be used to fund a £1.25 billion capital expenditure programme in Bloomsbury and Stratford. Some UCL academics oppose the expansion plans.


title: University College London

text: A report by London Economics in 2022 found that UCL generates around £10 billion annually for the UK economy. The largest contributor to this is through the spread of its research and knowledge, which is worth £4 billion, with another £3 billion being added by the impact of UCL's own spending. Other contributions come from encouraging graduates to create jobs and investment, and from nurturing company spin-offs and start-ups. The report found that in 2018–19, UCL had supported 234 graduate start-ups and 83 spinout companies, with a total turnover of £110 million and employing almost 3,000 people. The report also found that UCL's spending supported 19,000 jobs across the UK, with over 7,000 of these being outside of London.


title: University College London

text: The UCL academic year is divided into three terms. For most departments except the medical school, Term One runs from late September to mid December, Term Two from mid January to late March, and Term Three from late April to mid June. Certain departments operate reading weeks in early November and mid February. Term 3 is widely dedicated for summer assessments only. The venue used to cope with the great numbers of students sitting exams is the ExCeL London conference centre in East London.


title: University College London

text: Whereas most universities primarily use their logo on mundane documents but their coat of arms on official documents such as degree certificates, UCL exclusively uses its logo. The present logo was adopted as part of a rebranding exercise in August 2005. Prior to that date, a different logo was used, in which the letters UCL were incorporated into a stylised representation of the Wilkins Building portico.


title: University College London

text: UCL formerly made some use of a pseudo-heraldic "coat of arms" depicting a raised bent arm dressed in armour holding a green upturned open wreath. A version of this badge (not on a shield) appears to have been used by UCL Union from shortly after its foundation in 1893. However, the arms have never been the subject of an official grant of arms, and depart from several of the rules and conventions of heraldry. They are no longer formally used by the college, although they are still occasionally seen in unofficial contexts, or used in modified form by sports teams and societies. The blazon of the arms might be rendered as: "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 expectent praemia palmae." The motto is a quotation from Virgil's "Aeneid", and translates into English as "Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward".


title: University College London

text: UCL's traditional sporting and academic colours of purple [rgb(96,40,153)] and light blue [rgb(102,204,255)] are derived from the arms.


title: University College London

text: From its foundation the college was deliberately secular; the initial justification for this was that it would enable students of different Christian traditions (specifically Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Nonconformists) to study alongside each other without conflict. UCL has retained this strict secular position and, unlike most other UK universities, has no specific religious prayer rooms. There is, however, a Christian chaplain (who also serves as interfaith advisor) and there is no restriction on religious groups among students. A "quiet contemplation room" also allows prayer for staff and students of all faiths.


title: University College London

text: In recent years, the university has paid tens of thousands of pounds to settle sexual harassment claims but announced in 2018 that it would abandon non-disclosure settlements. The university made the decision after physicist Emma Chapman sued the institution for sexual harassment through the law firm of Ann Olivarius and then won the legal right to speak freely about her abuse at the university. Chapman settled the case for £70,000. In 2020, UCL became the first Russell Group university to ban romantic and sexual relationships between lecturers and their students.


title: University College London

text: UCL is a constituent college of the federal University of London, of which it was one of the two founding members in 1836 (the other being King's College London).


title: University College London

text: UCL is a founding member of the Russell Group, an association of 24 British research universities established in 1994, and of the G5 lobbying group, which it established in early 2004 with the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Imperial College London and the London School of Economics. UCL is regarded as forming part of the ‘golden triangle’, an unofficial term for a set of leading universities located in the southern English cities of Cambridge, London and Oxford including the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Imperial College London, King's College London and the London School of Economics.


title: University College London

text: UCL has been a member of the League of European Research Universities since January 2006 and it is currently one of five British members (the others being the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford and Imperial College London). Other international groupings that UCL is a member of include the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association and the Universities Research Association. UCL has hundreds of research and teaching partnerships, including around 150 research links and 130 student-exchange partnerships, and has a major collaboration with Yale University, the Yale UCL Collaborative, and strategic partnerships with Peking University and the University of Toronto.


title: University College London

text: UCL has been a member of the SES engineering and physical sciences research alliance since May 2013, which it formed with the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Southampton and Imperial College London (King's College London subsequently joined in 2016). UCL is a member of the Thomas Young Centre, an alliance of London research groups working on the theory and simulation of materials; the other members are Imperial College London, King's College London and Queen Mary University of London. UCL is one of the five founding members of the Alan Turing Institute, the UK's national institute for data sciences (together with the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and Warwick). UCL operates the London Centre for Nanotechnology, a multidisciplinary research centre in physical and biomedical nanotechnology, in partnership with Imperial College London. UCL is also a member of the Screen Studies Group together with Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, King's College London, Royal Holloway, SOAS, Queen Mary, and the London School of Economics.


title: University College London

text: In the field of Mathematics, University College London has a joint venture with Imperial College London and King's College London running the London School of Geometry and Number Theory, an EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training. This offers a wide range of 4-year PhD research projects in different aspects of number theory, geometry and topology.


title: University College London

text: UCL has a close partnership with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; the trust's hospitals are teaching sites for the UCL Medical School, UCL and the trust are joint partners in the UCLH/UCL Biomedical Research Centre and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, and both are members of the UCL Partners academic health science centre. UCL is a founding member of the Francis Crick Institute, a major biomedical research centre in London which is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Imperial College London, King's College London, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and UCL. UCL also operates the Bloomsbury Research Institute, a research institute focused on basic to clinical and population studies in bacteriology, parasitology and virology, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.


title: University College London

text: UCL offers joint degrees with numerous other universities and institutions, including The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, Columbia University, Facebook AI Research (FAIR), the University of Hong Kong, Imperial College London, New York University, Peking University, the University of Toronto and Yale University.


title: University College London

text: UCL is the sponsor of the UCL Academy, a secondary school in the London Borough of Camden. The school opened in September 2012 and was the first in the UK to have a university as sole sponsor. UCL also has a strategic partnership with Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre. UCL founded University College School in 1830 and the school inherited many of UCL's progressive and secular views, although there is now no formal link between the two institutions.


title: University College London

text: UCL is a founding member of Knowledge Quarter, a partnership of academic, cultural, research, scientific and media organisations based in the knowledge cluster in the Bloomsbury and King's Cross area of London. Other members of the partnership include the British Library, the British Museum, Google and the Wellcome Trust.


title: University College London

text: In the 2018/19 academic year, UCL had an average of 7,700 academic and research staff, the highest number of any UK university, of whom 5,845 were full-time and 1,855 part-time. UCL has 840 professors, the largest number of any British university. As of August 2016, there were 56 Fellows of the Royal Society, 51 Fellows of the British Academy, 15 Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering and 121 Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences amongst UCL academic and research staff.


title: University College London

text: UCL has made cross-disciplinary research a priority and orientates its research around four "Grand Challenges", Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing.


title: University College London

text: In 2014/15, UCL had a total research income of £427.5 million, the third-highest of any British university (after the University of Oxford and Imperial College London). Key sources of research income in that year were BIS research councils (£148.3 million), UK-based charities (£106.5 million), UK central government, local/health authorities and hospitals (£61.5 million), EU government bodies (£45.5 million), and UK industry, commerce and public corporations (£16.2 million). In 2015/16, UCL was awarded a total of £85.8 million in grants by UK research councils, the second-largest amount of any British university (after the University of Oxford), having achieved a 28% success rate. For the period to June 2015, UCL was the fifth-largest recipient of Horizon 2020 EU research funding, and the largest recipient of any university, with €49.93 million of grants received. UCL also had the fifth-largest number of projects funded of any organisation, with 94.


title: University College London

text: According to a ranking of universities produced by SCImago Research Group, UCL is ranked 12th in the world (and 1st in Europe) in terms of total research output. According to data released in July 2008 by ISI Web of Knowledge, UCL is the 13th most-cited university in the world (and most-cited in Europe). The analysis covered citations from 1 January 1998 to 30 April 2008, during which 46,166 UCL research papers attracted 803,566 citations. The report covered citations in 21 subject areas and the results revealed some of UCL's key strengths, including: Clinical Medicine (1st outside North America); Immunology (2nd in Europe); Neuroscience & Behaviour (1st outside North America and 2nd in the world); Pharmacology & Toxicology (1st outside North America and 4th in the world); Psychiatry & Psychology (2nd outside North America); and Social Sciences, General (1st outside North America).


title: University College London

text: UCL submitted a total of 2,566 staff across 36 units of assessment to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment, in each case the highest number of any UK university (compared with 1,793 UCL staff submitted to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008)). In the REF results 43% of UCL's submitted research was classified as 4* (world-leading), 39% as 3* (internationally excellent), 15% as 2* (recognised internationally) and 2% as 1* (recognised nationally), giving an overall GPA of 3.22 (RAE 2008: 4* – 27%, 3* – 39%, 2* – 27% and 1* – 6%). In rankings produced by "Times Higher Education" based upon the REF results, UCL was ranked 1st overall for "research power" and joint 8th for GPA (compared to 4th and 7th respectively in equivalent rankings for the RAE 2008).


title: University College London

text: UCL has offered courses in medicine since 1834, but the current UCL Medical School developed from mergers with the medical schools of the Middlesex Hospital (founded in 1746) and the Royal Free Hospital (founded as the London School of Medicine for Women in 1874). Clinical medicine is primarily taught at the Royal Free Hospital, University College Hospital and the Whittington Hospital, with other associated teaching hospitals including the Eastman Dental Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital.


title: University College London

text: UCL is a major centre for biomedical research. In a bibliometric analysis of biomedical and health research in England for the period 2004–13, UCL was found to have produced by far the highest number of highly cited publications of any institution, with 12,672 (compared to second-placed Oxford University with 9,952). UCL is part of three of the 20 biomedical research centres established by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in England – the UCLH/UCL Biomedical Research Centre, the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and the NIHR Great Ormond Street Biomedical Research Centre. In the latest round of Department of Health funding for the 5 years from April 2017, the three UCL-affiliated biomedical research centres secured £168.6 million of the £811 million total funding nationwide, the largest amount awarded to any university and significantly higher than second-placed Oxford University (with £126.5 million).


title: University College London

text: UCL is a founding member of UCL Partners, the largest academic health science centre in Europe with a turnover of approximately £2 billion. UCL is also a member of the Francis Crick Institute based next to St Pancras railway station. It is one of the world's largest medical research centres, housing 1,250 scientists, and the largest of its kind in Europe.


title: University College London

text: Admission to UCL is highly selective with an average entry tariff for 2019–20 of 185 UCAS points (approximately equivalent to AAAB at A-level), the 4th highest in the country. According to a Freedom of Information request response, UCL's offer rate for 2021 admission was 36.1% at undergraduate level and 23.5% at postgraduate level across all applicants. UCL was one of the first universities in the UK to make use of the A* grade at A-Level (introduced in 2010) for admissions to courses including Economics, European Social and Political Studies, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Theoretical Physics and Psychology.


title: University College London

text: The university gave offers of admission to 56.6% of its UK domiciled applicants in 2017, and had the 6th lowest offer rate in the Russell Group in 2015.


title: University College London

text: Of UCL's young UK domiciled undergraduates, 32.7% were privately educated in 2019–20, the eighth highest proportion amongst mainstream British universities. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 59:12:30 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 58:42.


title: University College London

text: Undergraduate law applicants are required to take the National Admissions Test for Law and undergraduate medical applicants are required to take the BioMedical Admissions Test. Applicants for European Social and Political Studies are required to take the Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) should they be selected for an assessment day. Some UCL departments interview undergraduate applicants prior to making an offer of admission.


title: University College London

text: Undergraduate subjects with the highest applicants to places ratio at UCL in 2015 included Architecture BSc (14:1 ratio), Economics BSc (Econ) (11:1 ratio), Engineering (Mechanical with Business Finance) MEng (10:1 ratio), English BA (10:1 ratio), Fine Art BA (23:1 ratio), Law LL.B (16:1 ratio) and Philosophy, Politics and Economics BSc (30:1 ratio).


title: University College London

text: UCL runs intensive one-year foundation courses that lead to a variety of degree programmes at UCL and other top UK universities. Called the UCL University Preparatory Certificate, the courses are targeted at international students of high academic potential whose education systems in their own countries usually do not offer qualifications suitable for direct admission. There are two pathways – one in science and engineering called the UPCSE; and one in the humanities called UPCH. Students completing this course progress onto undergraduate programmes at Nazarbayev University.


title: University College London

text: The UCL library system comprises 17 libraries located across several sites within the main UCL campus and across Bloomsbury, linked together by a central networking catalogue and request system called Explore. The libraries contain a total of over 2 million books. The largest library is the UCL Main Library, which is located in the UCL Main Building and contains collections relating to the arts and humanities, economics, history, law and public policy. The second largest library is the UCL Science Library, which is located in the DMS Watson Building on Malet Place and contains collections relating to anthropology, engineering, geography, life sciences, management and the mathematical and physical sciences. The Cruciform Hub contains books and periodicals in the subjects of clinical medicine and medical science. It holds the combined collections of the former Boldero and Clinical Sciences libraries which developed within the Middlesex Hospital, University College Hospital and Royal Free & University College Medical Schools up until their merger in 2005. Other libraries include the UCL Bartlett Library (architecture and town planning), the UCL Eastman Dental Institute Library (oral health sciences), the UCL Institute of Archaeology Library (archaeology and egyptology), the UCL Institute of Education's Newsam Library (education and related areas of social science), the UCL Institute of Neurology Rockefeller Medical Library (neurosurgery and neuroscience), the Joint Moorfields Eye Hospital & the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology Library (biomedicine, medicine, nursing, ophthalmology and visual science), the UCL Language & Speech Science Library (audiology, communication disorders, linguistics & phonetics, special education, speech & language therapy and voice) and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library (the economics, geography, history, languages, literature and politics of Eastern Europe).


title: University College London

text: UCL staff and students have full access to the main libraries of the University of London—the Senate House Library and the libraries of the institutes of the School of Advanced Study—which are located close to the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury. These libraries contain over 3.7 million books and focus on the arts, humanities and social sciences. The British Library, which contains around 14 million books, is also located close to the main UCL campus and all UCL students and staff can apply for reference access.


title: University College London

text: Since 2004, UCL Library Services has been collecting the scholarly work of UCL researchers to make it freely available on the internet via an open access repository known as UCL Eprints. The intention is that material curated by UCL Eprints will remain accessible indefinitely.


title: University College London

text: 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, the papers of composer Mary Louisa White, and the George Orwell Archive. Collections are often displayed in a series of glass cabinets in the Cloisters of the UCL Main Building.


title: University College London

text: UCL's most significant works are housed in the Strong Rooms. The special collection includes first editions of Isaac Newton's "Principia", Charles Darwin's "On the 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.


title: University College London

text: UCL is responsible for several museums and collections in a wide range of fields across the arts and sciences, including:


title: University College London

text: In the 2022 "QS World University Rankings", UCL is ranked 8th in the world, 2nd in London, 3rd in the United Kingdom and joint 4th in Europe. In the 2019/20 Rankings by Subject, UCL has 38 subjects in the world top 100. It is ranked in the world top 10 for nine subjects: anthropology (10th), archaeology (3rd), architecture (1st), anatomy and physiology (5th), education and training (1st), geography (7th), medicine (9th), pharmacy and pharmacology (7th), and psychology (10th). In broad subject areas, it is ranked 10th for life sciences and medicine, 15th for arts and humanities, 34th for social sciences and management, 49th for engineering and technology, and 63rd equal for natural sciences. In the QS Graduate Employability Ranking, UCL is ranked 22nd.


title: University College London

text: In the 2020 "Academic Ranking of World Universities", UCL is ranked 16th in the world (and 4th in Europe). In the 2016 subject tables it was ranked 8th in the world (and 2nd in Europe) for Clinical Medicine & Pharmacy, joint 51st to 75th in the world (and joint 10th in Europe) for Engineering, Technology and Computer Sciences, 9th in the world (and 2nd in Europe) for Life & Agricultural Sciences, joint 51st to 75th in the world (and joint 14th in Europe) for Natural Sciences and Mathematics and joint 51st to 75th in the world (and joint 12th in Europe) for Social Sciences.


title: University College London

text: In the 2021 "Times Higher Education World University Rankings", UCL is ranked 16th in the world (and 5th in Europe). In the 2016/17 subject tables it was ranked 4th in the world (and 2nd in Europe) for Arts and Humanities, 6th in the world (and 4th in Europe) for Clinical, Pre-Clinical and Health, 12th in the world (and 6th in Europe) for Computer Science, joint 38th in the world (and 12th in Europe) for Engineering and Technology, 12th in the world (and 4th in Europe) for Life Sciences, joint 23rd in the world (and 8th in Europe) for Physical Sciences and 14th in the world (and 3rd in Europe) for Social Sciences. In the 2017 "Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings", UCL is ranked 16th in the world. In the 2015 "Times Higher Education Global Employability University Ranking", UCL is ranked 48th in the world.


title: University College London

text: In 2020, UCL ranked 8th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. UCL is ranked 18th in the world (2nd in Europe) for number of publications and 18th in the world (6th in Europe) for quality of publications in the 2019 "CWTS Leiden Ranking". UCL is ranked 3rd in the world (1st in Europe) in the 2019/20 "University Ranking by Academic Performance". UCL is ranked 6th in the world (2nd in Europe) in the 2019 "National Taiwan University Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities". UCL is also ranked 10th in the world (4th in Europe) in the 2020 "Round University Ranking". In the 2018 "U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking", UCL is ranked 22nd in the world (4th in Europe).


title: University College London

text: UCL is ranked as one of the top 10 multi-faculty universities in two of the three main UK university league tables. These place more emphasis on the undergraduate student experience than global rankings, using criteria such as teaching quality and learning resources, entry standards, employment prospects, research quality and dropout rates. In the 2019 "Times Higher Education" "Table of Tables", which is based on the combined results of the UK's three main domestic university rankings, UCL is ranked 10th. Historically, in "The Sunday Times" 10-year (1998–2007) average ranking of British universities based on their league table performance, UCL was ranked 5th overall in the UK. UCL was also one of only eight universities (along with the other members of the G5, Bath, St Andrews and Warwick) to have never been outside the top 15 in one of the three main domestic rankings between 2008 and 2017.


title: University College London

text: In the 2021 "Complete University Guide" subject tables, UCL was ranked in the top 10 in 23 subjects out of 40 offered (57.5%). In a 2015 "Times Higher Education" study UCL was chosen as the 8th best university in the UK for the quality of graduates according to recruiters from the UK's major companies. According to data released by the Department for Education in 2018, UCL was rated as the 7th best university in the UK for boosting female graduate earnings with female graduates seeing a 15.5% increase in earnings compared to the average graduate, and the 10th best university for males, with male graduates seeing a 16.2% increase in earnings compared to the average graduate.


title: University College London

text: UCL has significant commercial activities and in 2014/15 these generated around £155 million in revenues. UCL's principal commercial activities include UCL Press, UCL Business, UCL Consultants, and catering and accommodation services. UCL has also participated in a number of commercial joint ventures, including EuroTempest Ltd and Imanova Ltd (now part of Invicro).


title: University College London

text: UCL Business (UCLB) is a technology transfer company which is wholly owned by UCL. It has three main activities: licensing technologies, creating spin-out companies, and project management. UCLB supports spin-out companies in areas including discovery disclosure, commercialisation, business plan development, contractual advice, incubation support, recruitment of management teams and identification of investors. In the area of licensing technoloiges, UCLB provides commercial, legal and administrative advice to help companies broker licensing agreements. UCLB also provides UCL departments and institutes with project management services for single or multi-party collaborative industry projects.


title: University College London

text: UCLB had a turnover of £8 million in 2014/15 and as at 31 July 2015 had equity holdings in 61 companies.


title: University College London

text: UCL Consultants (UCLC) is an academic consultancy services company which is wholly owned by UCL. It provides four main service offerings: Academic Consultancy, Bespoke Short Courses, Testing & Analysis and Expert Witness. As of 31 July 2018, UCLC had over 1,900 registered consultants.


title: University College London

text: Launched in 2015, UCL Press is a university press wholly owned by UCL. It was the first fully open access university press in the UK, and publishes monographs, textbooks and other academic books in a wide range of academic areas which are available to download for free, in addition to a number of journals. As of October 2022, UCL Press had had more than 6.5 million downloads of its open access books in 247 countries and territories worldwide.


title: University College London

text: Imanova was a joint venture company of UCL, Imperial College London, King's College London and the Medical Research Council that owned and manages the Clinical Imaging Centre located at Imperial College London's Hammersmith Hospital campus. It was acquired by the imaging services provider Invicro in 2017.


title: University College London

text: In the 2020/21 academic year, UCL had a total of 45,715 students, of whom 21,775 were undergraduate and 23,940 were postgraduate. In that year, UCL had the second-largest total number of students of any university in the United Kingdom (after the Open University) and the largest number of postgraduate students.


title: University College London

text: In 2020/21, 87% of UCL's students were full-time and 13% part-time, although among undergraduates only 0.3% were part-time. The student body was split 59% female and 41% male. In 2020/21, 20,170 UCL students (44%) were from outside the UK, of whom 14,620 were from Asia, 4,880 from the European Union, 940 from North America, 870 from elsewhere in Europe, 740 from the Middle East, 410 from Africa, 250 from South America, and 120 from Australasia. Over half of overseas students at UCL – 10,820 – came from China.


title: University College London

text: Founded in 1893, Students' Union UCL, formerly the UCL Union, is one of the oldest students' unions in England, although postdating the Liverpool Guild of Students which formed a student representative council in 1892. UCL Union operates both as the representative voice for UCL students, and as a provider of a wide range of services. It is democratically controlled through General Meetings and referendums, and is run by elected student officers. The union also supports a range of services, including numerous clubs and societies, sports facilities, an advice service, and a number of bars, cafes and shops.


title: University College London

text: The union runs over 70 sports clubs, including the UCL Cricket Club (Men's and Women's), UCL Boat Club (Men's and Women's clubs), UCL Running, Athletics and Cross Country Club (RAX), and UCL Rugby Club (Men's and Women's), as well as RUMS sports clubs, open for Medical students.


title: University College London

text: UCL clubs compete in inter-university fixtures in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competition in a range of sports, including athletics, basketball, cricket, fencing, football, hockey, netball, rugby union and tennis. In the 2021/22 season, UCL finished in 16th position in the final BUCS rankings.


title: University College London

text: UCL sports facilities include a fitness centre at the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury, a sports centre in Somers Town and a athletics ground in Shenley, Hertfordshire.


title: University College London

text: The UCL mascot is Phineas MacLino, or Phineas, a wooden tobacconist's sign of a kilted Jacobite Highlander stolen from outside a shop in Tottenham Court Road during the celebrations of the relief of Ladysmith, part of the Second Boer War, in March 1900. In 1922, Phineas was stolen by students from King's, marking the start of 'mascotry', leading to an hour-long battle and the eventual return of Phineas. In 1993, the students' union's centenary year, Phineas was placed in the third floor bar of 25 Gordon Street and the bar named after him.


title: University College London

text: UCL has a long-running, mostly friendly rivalry with King's College London, which has historically been known as "Rags". UCL students have been referred to by students from King's as the "Godless Scum of Gower Street", in reference to a comment made at the founding of King's, which was based on Christian principles. UCL students in turn referred to King's as "Strand Polytechnic".


title: University College London

text: Shortly after the 1922 kidnapping of Phineas, King's adopted their own mascot – initially a large papier mâché beer bottle, soon replaced by Reggie the Lion. During the 1927 rag, Reggie was captured by UCL students and his body filled with rotten apples. During the same year, an attempt by King's students to capture Phineas led to the impressive "Battle of Gower Street," caught on camera by British Pathe. On another occasion, Reggie was castrated by UCL students.


title: University College London

text: King's students stole the embalmed head of Jeremy Bentham in October 1975, only returning it after UCL paid a ransom to charity. The head is now kept in the UCL vaults.


title: University College London

text: As part of the protests against the UK government's plans to increase student fees, around 200 students occupied the Jeremy Bentham Room and part of the Slade School of Fine Art for over two weeks during November and December 2010. The university successfully obtained a court order to evict the students but stated that it did not intend to enforce the order if possible.


title: University College London

text: The late 2010s saw student campaigns around the cost of university-run accommodation. In 2016, over 1000 students took part in a rent strike in protest against high rents and poor conditions. Organisers claimed to have won over £1 million in rent cuts, freezes and grants from UCL in the settlement that ended the strike. Another rent strike in 2017 lead to UCL pledging around £1.4 million in bursaries and rent freezes, mostly in the form of accommodation bursaries for less well-off students totalling £600,000 per year for the 2017/18 and 2018/19 academic years. Another rent strike was held at two halls of residence in the third term of the 2017/18 academic year due to complaints over conditions at those halls.


title: University College London

text: UCL owns 26 halls of residence with around 7,000 student beds. The university guarantees accommodation to single full-time first-year undergraduate students who have not previously lived in London while studying at a university, and who make a firm acceptance of a place and apply for accommodation by 10 June each year, and to single overseas first-year postgraduates at UCL who have not previously lived in London while studying at a university, and who make a firm acceptance of a place and apply for accommodation by 30 June each year. Accommodation is also guaranteed for students who are under 18 at the start of the academic year and for students who are care-leavers. There is only limited accommodation available in university halls for returning students and others who do not meet the criteria for a guaranteed place. UCL students are also eligible, as students of a member institution of the University of London, to apply for places in the University of London intercollegiate halls of residence.


title: University College London

text: In 2013, a new student accommodation building on Caledonian Road was awarded the Carbuncle Cup and named the country's worst new building by "Building Design" magazine, with the comment "this is a building that the jury struggled to see as remotely fit for human occupation". Islington Council had originally turned down planning permission for the building, but this had been overturned on appeal.


title: University College London

text: UCL alumni include Francis Crick (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA), William Stanley Jevons (an early pioneer of modern economics) and Charles K. Kao ("Godfather of broadband"). Notable former staff include Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk ("Father of the Nation" of Czechoslovakia"), Peter Higgs (proposer of the Higgs mechanism which predicted the existence of the Higgs boson), Lucian Freud (artist) and Sir William Ramsay (discoverer of all of the naturally occurring noble gases).


title: University College London

text: Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 30 UCL academics and alumni (16 in Physiology or Medicine, seven in Chemistry, five in Physics and one each in Literature and Economic Sciences) as well as three Fields Medals in Mathematics.