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The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, known by its trade names Imperial College London and Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned South Kensington as a cultural district with museums, colleges, and the Royal Albert Hall. In 1907, two colleges – the Royal College of Science and the Royal School of Mines – merged to form Imperial College London, with City and Guilds College joining in 1910.

In 1988, Imperial merged with St Mary's Hospital Medical School and then with Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School to form the Imperial College School of Medicine. The Imperial Business School was established in 2003 and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. Formerly a constituent college of the University of London, Imperial became an independent university in 2007.

Imperial is organised into four faculties: engineering, medicine, natural sciences, and business. The university encourages innovation and enterprise across all its faculties by integrating business courses into science degrees and providing business students with a scientific education. The main campus is located in South Kensington with additional campuses in White City and other locations near South Kensington. The faculty of medicine also operates five teaching hospitals across London as well as the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine based in Carlisle in co-operation with the University of Cumbria.

Its graduates and academics include 14 Nobel Prize winners, three Fields Medal winners, 74 fellows of the Royal Society and 84 fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

History

19th century

The earliest college that led to the formation of Imperial was the Royal College of Chemistry, founded in 1845, with the support of Prince Albert and parliament. This was merged in 1853 into what became known as the Royal School of Mines. The medical school has roots in many different schools across London, the oldest of which being Charing Cross Hospital Medical School which can be traced back to 1823, followed by teaching starting at Westminster Hospital in 1834, and St Mary's Hospital in 1851.

In 1851, the Great Exhibition was organised as an exhibition of culture and industry by Henry Cole and by Prince Albert, husband of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria. An enormously popular and financial success, proceeds from the Great Exhibition were designated to develop an area for cultural and scientific advancement in South Kensington. Within the next six years the Victoria and Albert Museum and Science Museum had opened, joined by new facilities in 1871 for the Royal College of Chemistry, and in 1881 the opening of the Royal School of Mines and Natural History Museum.

In 1881, the Normal School of Science was established in South Kensington under the leadership of Thomas Huxley, taking over responsibility for the teaching of the natural sciences and agriculture from the Royal School of Mines. The school was renamed the Royal College of Science by royal consent in 1890. The Central Institution of the City and Guilds of London Institute was opened as a technical education school on Exhibition Road by the Prince of Wales in 1884, with courses beginning in 1885.

20th century

At the start of the 20th century, there was a concern that Great Britain was falling behind Germany in scientific and technical education. A departmental committee was set up at the Board of Education in 1904, to look into the future of the Royal College of Science. A report released in 1906 called for the establishment of an institution unifying the Royal College of Science and the Royal School of Mines, as well as – if an agreement could be reached with the City and Guilds of London Institute – its Central Technical College.

On 8 July 1907, Edward VII granted a Royal Charter establishing the Imperial College of Science and Technology. This incorporated the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Science. It also made provisions for the City and Guilds College to join once conditions regarding its governance were met, as well as for Imperial to become a college of the University of London. The college joined the University of London on 22 July 1908, with the City and Guilds College joining in 1910. The main campus of Imperial College was constructed beside the buildings of the Imperial Institute, the new building for the Royal College of Science having opened across from it in 1906, and the foundation stone for the Royal School of Mines building being laid by King Edward VII in July 1909.

Campuses

South Kensington

The South Kensington campus is the college's main campus, where most teaching and research takes place. It is home to many notable buildings, such as the Business School, Royal School of Mines, and Royal College of Science. It is also the original site of the Imperial Institute, whose Queen's Tower stands at the heart of the campus overlooking Queen's Lawn. As part of a cultural centre known as Albertopolis the campus is surrounded by many of London's most popular attractions, including the Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Palace, museums including the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and Victoria and Albert Museum, and institutions such as the Royal College of Art, the Royal College of Music, and the National Art Library.

The campus has many restaurants and cafés run by the college, and contains much of the college's student accommodation, including the Prince's Garden Halls, and Beit Hall, home to the college union, which runs student pubs, a nightclub, and a cinema on site. To the north, within easy walking distance of the college, are Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, with green spaces and sports facilities used by many of the student clubs.

White City

Imperial has a new second major campus in White City providing a platform for innovation and entrepreneurship. This campus was built on land previously owned by BBC.

The hub houses research facilities, postgraduate accommodation, as well as a commercialisation space called I-HUB. This houses the London hub of the British government’s Defence and Security Accelerator and a United States Air Force, Army and Navy joint international research office. Saab and Airbus also have a presence on the campus.

The campus is home to the Scale Space and incubator, Invention Rooms, a college hackerspace and community outreach centre.

The White City campus also includes a biomedical centre funded by a donation from alumnus Sir Michael Uren.

Imperial revealed plans in 2025 to build an AI campus at White City, centred on a new 12-storey building designed by Allies and Morrison, to be constructed between 2028 and 2029.

Silwood Park

Silwood Park is a postgraduate campus of Imperial in the village of Sunninghill near Ascot in Berkshire. The Silwood Park campus remains a centre for research and teaching in ecology, evolution, and conservation. It is set in 100 hectares of parkland used for ecological field experiments.

Hospitals

Imperial has teaching hospitals across London which are used by the School of Medicine for undergraduate clinical teaching and medical research. All are based around college-affiliated hospitals, and also provide catering and sport facilities. College libraries are located on each campus, including the Fleming library at St Mary's.

Organisation and administration

Faculties and departments

Imperial is organised into four faculties: the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and the Imperial Business School. As of 2024, the academic departments are:

Interdisciplinary centres

Imperial hosts centres to promote inter-disciplinary work under the titles of Global Challenge institutes, Imperial Centres of Excellence and Imperial Networks of Excellence. It also participates as a partner in a number of national institutes.

Academic centres

The Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication operates as Imperial College London's adult education centre, offering evening class courses in the arts, humanities, languages and sciences. The university also houses two academic centres offering teaching to undergraduate and postgraduate students in subjects outside of science, technology and medicine. The academic centres are the:

Centre for Academic English

Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication

Governance

The council is the governing body of Imperial. The council consists of between 19 and 27 members, with an independent chair and ex officio members being the president, the provost, the chief operating officer, the president of Imperial College Union, and four senior staff members. There are also up to four further staff members (comprising one member elected by the academic staff, one further appointed member of academic staff and two members of the professional services staff), up to one further representative of Imperial College Union, and between nine and 13 other independent members, with the proviso that the independent members (including the chair) must comprise the majority. The president is the highest academic official and chief executive of Imperial College London. The position has been held by Hugh Brady, since August 2022. As of 2024, the provost is Ian Walmsley and the chair is Vindi Banga.

Finances and endowment

The college's endowment is sub-divided into three distinct portfolios:

Unitised Scheme – a unit trust vehicle for the college, Faculties and Departments to invest endowments and unfettered income to produce returns for the long term

Non-Core Property – a portfolio containing around 120 operational and developmental properties which the college has determined are not core to the academic mission

Strategic Asset Investments – containing the college's shareholding in Imperial Innovations and other restricted equity holdings.

In the financial year ending 31 July 2024, Imperial had a total income of £1.309 billion (2022/23 – £1.256 billion) and total expenditure of £1.051 billion (2022/23 – £1.235 billion). Key sources of income included £507.5 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2022/23 – £452.1 million), £165.4 million from funding body grants (2022/23 – £183.3 million), £396.2 million from research grants and contracts (2022/23 – £383.1 million), £28.8 million from investment income (2022/23 – £24.1 million) and £35.5 million from donations and endowments (2022/23 – £51.5 million).

Academic profile

Research

In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, Imperial's research profile was assessed as 66 per cent world class (4*) 30 per cent internationally important (3*) and 3 per cent internationally recognised (2*), with insignificant quantities of research in lower categories. This led to Imperial being ranked first in the UK on GPA and ninth for research power by Times Higher Education, with a GPA of 3.63 and research power 47.3 per cent of the top-ranked University of Oxford.

The college promotes research commercialisation, partly through its dedicated technology transfer company, Imperial Innovations, which has given rise to a large number of spin-out companies based on academic research. Imperial researcher Narinder Singh Kapany made critical contributions to the invention of fibre optics.

The United States is the college's top foreign country for collaborations, and Imperial College has a long-term partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that dates from World War II.

In January 2018, the mathematics department of Imperial and the French National Centre for Scientific Research launched an "international joint research unit" (unité mixte internationale; UMI) at Imperial, known as

UMI Abraham de Moivre after the French mathematician, focused on unsolved problems and bridging British and French scientific communities. In October 2018, Imperial College launched the Imperial Cancer Research UK Center, a research collaboration that aims to find innovative ways to improve the precision of cancer treatments, inaugurated by Joe Biden as part of his Biden Cancer Initiative.

Neil Ferguson's 16 March 2020 report entitled "Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand" was described in a New York Times article as the coronavirus "report that jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to action". Since 18 May, Imperial College's Dr. Samir Bhatt advised the state of New York for its reopening plan. The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said at the time that "the Imperial College model, as we've been following this for weeks, was the best, most accurate model."

Admissions

In the 2024/25 academic year, the student body consisted of 22,525 students, composed of 12,080 undergraduates and 10,440 postgraduate students. The university is consistently designated as a 'high-tariff' institution by the Department for Education, with the average undergraduate entrant to the university in recent years amassing between 163–165 UCAS Tariff points in their top three pre-university qualifications – the equivalent of A*A*A to A*A*A* at A-Level. Based on 2022/23 HESA entry standards data published in domestic league tables, which include a broad range of qualifications beyond the top three exam grades, the average student at Imperial College London achieved 202 points – the sixth highest in the country.

Student life

Student body

For the 2024/25 academic year, Imperial had a total full-time student body of 19,400, consisting of 10,475 undergraduate students and 8,925 postgraduates. 50.7% of the student body is from outside of the UK. 32% of all full-time students came from outside the European Union in 2013–14, and around 13% of the International students had Chinese nationality in 2007–08. Imperial's male to female ratio for undergraduate students is uneven at approximately 64:36 overall, and 5:1 or higher in some engineering courses. However, medicine has an approximate 1:1 ratio with biology degrees tending to be higher.

Imperial College Union

Imperial College Union is the students' union and is run by five full-time sabbatical officers elected from the student body for a tenure of one year, and a number of permanent members of staff. It is split into constituent unions aligned with the faculties of the college, carrying on the association with the original constituent colleges of Imperial, the Royal College of Science Union, City and Guilds College Union, Royal School of Mines Students' Union and Imperial College School of Medicine Students' Union. The union is given a large subvention by the university, much of which is spent on maintaining over 300 clubs, projects and societies.

Student societies

Imperial College London has over 350 student clubs, societies and projects. The Techtonics, Imperial's all-male contemporary a capella group, won the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella in 2016.

Other notable student groups and projects include Project Nepal, which sends Imperial College students to work on educational development programmes in rural Nepal, and the El Salvador Project, a construction based project in Central America.

Facilities

The union operates on two sites, with most events at the Union Building on Beit Quad in South Kensington, with most Imperial College School of Medicine events at the Reynold's Bar at Charing Cross Hospital.

There are two student bars on the South Kensington campus, one at the Imperial College Union and one at Eastside. There are a number of pubs and bars on campus and also surrounding the campus, which become a popular social activity for Imperial's students. The Pewter tankard collection at Imperial College Union is the largest in Europe, with the majority of clubs and societies having tankards associated with their clubs.

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