As you have come to expect, a lot happening here! In particular, I am pleased to share with you the news of a significant development for City and our community with important implications for our future.
We have been working with St George’s, University of London, on a proposal to create a combined multi-faculty. St George’s is the last of the great independent medical schools of London to come together with a larger University of London member institution. Kings, UCL, Imperial and QMUL, as we currently know them, were formed through their respective mergers. We are following this route, reflecting our distinctive mission, as the university for business, practice and the professions, and our drive and ambition. We expect to find a new enhanced positioning. We will, of course, secure a substantially enriched multidisciplinary research capability. Above all, we will be in a position to address the challenges of health and the health workforce, a critical social purpose.
With the proposal approved ‘in principle’ by both Councils, theirs and ours, in late March, we will now be working, together with St George’s, on further due diligence and detailed plans for joint operation. This will be subject to final formal approval of both Councils later this year.
The combination of a world-leading medical school (see below) and a university of City’s capability and unique focus will deliver excellence in practice and professionalism within and across traditional disciplinary boundaries in teaching and research. This development will enhance City’s distinctiveness, accelerate our strategy for growth and put us in a stronger and more resilient position to face future challenges. It will, in particular, reinforce our commitment to research at the frontier of practice.
St George’s cares deeply about health underpinned by science and high-impact research. City shares a clear commitment and strong track record in health sciences. Combination offers comprehensive complementarity and further opportunities in our existing close relationships with extensive health networks in London and beyond.
Our combined institution will be more than the ‘sum of our parts’. It will incentivise cross-faculty collaboration, interdisciplinary working, and enterprise. We intend to rapidly build new academic activity at the interface of health with business and management; law; policy; engineering; computing; communications and creativity. We share an unwavering commitment to social mobility and inclusion.
This is a significant moment in the development of both City and St George’s. I believe that moments of strategic challenge are also opportunities for advantage. These moments favour vision and collective ambition. We are setting our sights high.
I would like to thank all our alumni who, over the past weeks, took a phone call from one of our talented and enthusiastic students as part of the spring telephone campaign in support of our Future Fund, an initiative that provides life-changing financial support for our students including, for example, scholarships and our City Cares project. You can read about your impact here. For those of you who received a phone call, I hope you enjoyed connecting with our students, hearing the latest news from City, and getting a taste of student life today, as well as our research programmes and planned activities for alumni.
Over the past seven years, generous support from alumni has raised over £700k in gifts and pledges through our student telephone campaign, creating numerous opportunities for students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds. I am grateful for your commitment and continued support of your University, the current generation of students as well as our global alumni community. Thank you!
I hope you enjoy reading this edition of Alumni News.
Best wishes,
Anthony
President
City, University of London
About St George’s, University of London
St George’s, University of London is the UK’s specialist health university. Based at Tooting in South London (a short journey on the Northern line from City), it is shaping modern health with transformative research, expert teaching and hands-on learning. All three of the university’s research institutes focus on biomedical and scientific discovery, advancing the prevention and treatment of disease in the fields of population health, heart disease and infection – three of the greatest challenges to global health in the 21st century.
St George’s provides world-class multi-professional health sciences education that equips our graduates to meet today’s healthcare needs through relevant scientific research, clinical excellence, strong interpersonal skills and team-based working. Sharing a clinical environment with a major London teaching hospital, St George’s innovative approach to education results in well-rounded, highly skilled clinicians, scientists, and health and social care professionals.
St George’s is home to over 5,500 students and over 800 members of staff. Its alumni include pioneers in medicine, John Hunter, Edward Jenner, Henry Gray and Patrick Steptoe. St George’s is ranked first for graduate prospects by the Complete University Guide 2023, holds an Athena Swan institutional ‘Silver’ Award from Advance HE in recognition of its commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, and is ranked joint 8th in the UK for Research Impact in REF 2021.