University College London

University College London
motto	Cuncti adsint meritaeque expectent praemia palmae "Let all come (together) who expect a reward through merit"
founding	1826
Sponsorship	state
place	London , UK
Provost	Michael Arthur
Students	41,180 (2018/19)
Employee	12,830
Networks	LERU , Russell Group
Website	www.ucl.ac.uk

The University College London ( UCL ) is a college of the University of London . UCL is a member of the Russell Group and one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

With nearly 55,000 staff and students, the college is one of the largest in the UK . Within the Russell Group it belongs together with the University of Oxford , the University of Cambridge , the London School of Economics and Imperial College London for the subgroup of the "G5" elite universities. It has annual sales of over £ 700 million and accounts for more than 40% of the Russell Group's research funding.

The main part of the college can be found in central London 's Bloomsbury on Gower Street . The metro stations Euston , Euston Square , Warren Street , Goodge Street and Russell Square are nearby.

history

UCL was founded on February 11, 1826 under the name "University of London" and was intended as an alternative to the strictly religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge . It is often said that the University of London is the third oldest university in England after Oxford and Cambridge. However, the university was not legally recognized until 1836 and thus received the right to award academic degrees . At the same time it was renamed University College London, which is still valid today. Even before this legal recognition of UCL came the founding of King's College London in 1829 and the University of Durham (1832). King's College London is now part of the University of London together with UCL .

UCL was the first university in England to allow students to study regardless of race, religion or political belief. It may also have been the first university in England to accept students of both sexes (the University of Bristol claims the same thing - since both universities have admitted students to degrees from the University of London, it is possible that they did so at the same time). UCL was also the first university in England to set up a student organization (men and women were separated until 1945) and also the first to fill chairs in the following subjects: industrial chemistry , chemistry , Egyptology , electrical engineering , English , French , Geography , German , Italian , papyrology , phonetics , psychology and zoology .

In 1907 the original University of London was restored and many of the colleges, including UCL, lost their separate status. This lasted until 1977, when the independence of the UCL was recorded in a new document.

The front entrance area

In 1973 the UCL became the first international connection to the ARPANET , the forerunner of today's Internet .

In August 1998, the UCL Medical School merged with The Royal Free Hospital Medical School to create the new Royal Free and University College Medical School .

UCL still has a strictly secular character and, unlike most other British universities, there is neither a Christian chapel nor Muslim prayer rooms on campus . Because of this principle, UCL is also known as "the godless institution of Gower Street". H. in German "the godless institution on Gower Street". Even so, the UCL (University College London Union) student organization also includes religious groups. From 2006 to 2007 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , who became known at the end of 2009 for a failed bomb attack on a passenger plane, was president of the student organization's Islamic society.

The UCL student organization has the same principles as UCL and is constitutionally prohibited from affiliation with any political party. UCL's relatively apolitical stance can be attributed to the fact that candidates for office cannot advertise for office on party cards, and is in contrast to nearby institutions like the London School of Economics and Political Science . However, this attitude can also be related to social and cultural tendencies of the student body and the university management.

UCL's library is famous; their collection includes a first edition of Newton's important work " Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica ".

In October 2002 a merger of UCL with Imperial College London was announced. This merger was rejected by the staff as well as by the student organization as the takeover of UCL by Imperial College. What added to the annoyance of the staff and the student body was their inadequate involvement before the merger proposal was made. At an emergency meeting called by the University College London Union, then- Dean Derek Roberts stormed out of the Bloomsbury Theater and refused to listen to a speaker opposed to the merger. He himself had given a speech for the merger shortly beforehand. A month later, after a vigorous campaign, the merger plans were abandoned.

On August 1, 2003, Professor Malcolm Grant took over the office of President and Dean (Director of UCL) from Sir Derek Roberts . He had been called back from retirement to temporarily fill the office of dean. Shortly after his inauguration in 2004, the UCL began the "Campaign for UCL", in German: Campaign for the UCL. This campaign aimed to raise funds of £ 300 million and was aimed at past and current members and patrons of the college. This type of active fundraising is traditionally rather uncommon for British universities and is similar to the methods of funding used at American universities.

A history of University College London from 1828 to 2004 is published by John A. North and Negley Harte under the title The World of UCL .

Ranking and reputation

UCL is highly regarded in the UK and internationally. It is consistently listed in the top 5 League Tables of British Universities , i.e. H. the lists of the performance of each British university. In the worldwide rankings it currently (2016/17) ranks 7th (QS Rankings), 15th place (THE Rankings), and 17th place (ARWU Rankings). In the THE-QS World Ranking of 2012/2013 even 4th place worldwide and 2nd place Europe-wide could be achieved. In the QS World University Ranking 2014/2015, the UCL and the University of Oxford shared 5th place.

Alumni and personalities

• 

  Mahatma Gandhi , Indian politician and religious leader

• 

  Alexander Graham Bell , British speech therapist, inventor and large entrepreneur

• 

  Marie Stopes , Scottish botanist and suffragette

• 

  Ricky Gervais , British comedian, radio host and actor

• 

  Rachel Whiteread , English sculptor and first-time Turner Prize winner

• 

  Christopher Nolan , British-American director and film producer

The list of alumni includes a large number of globally recognized personalities, ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to the full cast of the Coldplay group . Famous writers include Robert Browning , Raymon Briggs and Gilbert Keith Chesterton . The group of scientists and engineers includes z. B. Francis Crick , John Ambrose Fleming , Roger Penrose , Colin Chapman , John Maynard Smith, and Alexander Graham Bell . Later politicians are also outstanding, such as the first Prime Minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito , or, more recently, Junichiro Koizumi . Other university graduates are Chaim Herzog , former Israeli President and Jomo Kenyatta , founding father of Kenya. Famous law alumni include the Presidents of the Supreme Courts of England (Lord Harry Woolf ), Hong Kong (Sir Yang Ti-liang ), India (Justice AS Anand) and Ghana ( Samuel Azu Crabbe ) as well as the Attorney General of England (Lord Goldsmith; Baroness Scotland), Singapore ( Tan Boon Teik ; Chao Hick Tin ) and Gambia ( Hassan Bubacar Jallow ).

UCL employs the largest number of academics of any UK university. The current staff includes 35 members of the Royal Society , 27 members of the British Academy and 77 members of the Academy of Medical Sciences. All naturally occurring noble gases were discovered at UCL by Sir William Ramsay, who was the head of chemistry. The list of UCL alumni and researchers so far includes 29 Nobel Prize winners and three Fields Medal recipients:

• Sir William Ramsay - 1904 Chemistry
• Rabindranath Tagore - 1913 literature
• Sir William Henry Bragg - 1915 Physics
• Frederick Soddy - 1921 Chemistry
• Archibald Vivian Hill - 1922 Physiology or Medicine
• Owen Willans Richardson - 1928 Physics
• Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins - 1929 Physiology or Medicine
• Sir Henry Hallett Dale - 1936 Physiology or Medicine
• Otto Hahn - 1944 chemistry
• Sir Robert Robinson - 1947 Chemistry
• Gabriel Bach - 1949 Law
• Vincent du Vigneaud - 1955 chemistry
• Jaroslav Heyrovský - 1959 chemistry
• Peter Brian Medawar - 1960 Physiology or Medicine
• Francis Harry Compton Crick - 1962 Physiology or Medicine
• Andrew Fielding Huxley - 1963 Physiology or Medicine
• Bernard Katz - 1970 Physiology or Medicine
• Ulf Svante von Euler - 1970 Physiology or Medicine
• Sir James Black - 1988 Physiology or Medicine
• Bert Sakmann - 1991 Physiology or Medicine
• Martin Evans - 2007 Physiology or Medicine
• John O'Keefe - 2014 Physiology or Medicine

• Klaus Friedrich Roth - Fields Medal 1958
• Alan Baker - Fields Medal 1970
• William Timothy Gowers - Fields Medal 1998

Buildings and facilities

The Flaxman Gallery of the Main Library

The buildings of the UCL are diverse in their architecture and reflect all styles since the university was founded. In addition to the main building, which was essentially built in 1828 but was not finally completed until 1985, this includes buildings from the Victorian era and modern buildings such as the new University College Hospital. Most of the buildings are concentrated in and around the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury, while some are further away (e.g. in Hampstead). The latest buildings include the London Center for Nanotechnology (LCN) and the new School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) , which was opened in October 2005 by Princess Anne and the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus.

Most of the faculties and departments of UCL enjoy the highest national and international repute. These include the Mullard Space Science Laboratory as the most important British research center for space travel and satellite missions, “The Bartlett”, one of the best and according to the “Architecture Journal” by far the most renowned architecture schools in the country and the famous Slade School of Fine Art . In addition, the university is under the control of a number of publicly accessible museums and collections, such as the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology, the Grant Museum of Zoology And Comparative Anatomy, and various art, geology and archeology collections.

UCL also operates UCL Bloomsbury, a 535-seat public concert and events hall on campus.

Web links

Commons : University College London  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• UCL homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Where do HE students study? In: hesa.ac.uk. HESA, accessed May 3, 2020 . 
2. ↑ "UCL's own statistics for the number of employees (as of October 2017)"
3. ↑ "UCL QA Profile" , 2017
4. ^ "New York Times: What the Job Market Wants," 2012
5. ↑ "US World News: Best Global Universities in Europe" , 2017
6. ^ "Evening Standard: UCL beats Oxford" , 2012
7. ↑ UCLU response to attempted act of terrorism ( Memento of January 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), UCLU statement of January 4, 2010 at www.uclunion.org
8. ↑ CV (Engl.) ( Memento from 1 June 2004 at the Internet Archive )
9. ↑ Negle Harte, John A. North : The World of UCL from 1828 to 2004 . Foreword by Malcolm Grant . 3. Edition. UCL Press, London 2004, ISBN 978-1-84472-068-2 (English).
10. ↑ QS World University Ranking 2016/17 , 2016
11. ↑ , 2016
12. ↑ , 2016
13. ↑ QS World University Ranking 2014/2015 , 2014.