What are the most important things for the College to get right in coming months?
We need to stay focused on the core activities of our business - teaching and research. We must prepare ourselves for the next RAE as that's where we can and will excel.

We have to make sure we are going to come out on top. Success will then lead to new initiatives.

Creating institutes is one such initiative. The maths institute and bioengineering institute will both be places where we should be able to attract the best minds in the world. If we constantly aim to build our reputation in areas such as these, people will view Imperial as being amongst the very best.

We're currently making tremendous progress when it comes to upgrading the estate. We're spending a lot of money during the next few years to try to build and refurbish as quickly as possible and so provide an environment fit for world-class academic pursuits.

How do you feel about student fees?
I'm still not clear where this issue will come to rest. The opposition has come out with a less than sensible idea to ban fees altogether. For a party that espouses the free market, it seems a very strange statement to make: maybe made for political reasons and not for sensible long term reasons that would develop higher education in the UK.

It's irresponsible to play with something as important as higher education in this way. If we are going to deliver high quality education, somebody's got to pay for it. If it's not the taxpayer, the recipient has to pay.

What do you think about possible changes in the way research will be assessed and funded?
Recently, most of the money that comes through the RAE has gone to the top 15 or 20 per cent of universities, but there's still a significant amount that's been distributed through many other universities.

The Roberts Review has asked whether the RAE in its present form is still sensible and if not what should replace it. Due to grade inflation, we need a new structure that allows different institutions to do different things.

We're not all the same. Some universities offer international quality research and others conduct research which has impact at the national or local level. All should be able to apply in different ways and not need to compete with each other. That's realistic and would provide a multi-tiered system which is exactly what you want in any environment - different things for different customers.

We've got to prepare ourselves to get Imperial into the top tier of the research quality assessment because that is where we will continue to make our contribution.

What is the thinking behind the Support Services Project?
The Government is going to look further at how universities are managed. For those that fail, there may be penalties.

It's very important therefore that we put our management on a good footing. So we have brought in a highly-regarded consulting group to work with people from both the academic and support services side and look at the best way of making the College operate better.

That's good for everybody; there's no question today that some of the services we offer are not perfect and there's quite a lot of duplication. What we have to do is make sure that in this modern age, we're running an efficient and effective operation and releasing academics' time for academic work.

In an article in the Financial Times, you mention solving the world's problems 'will require teams of researchers from different disciplines working together.' How successful are we at doing that and how do you measure such success?
We already do much interdisciplinary work. The institutes I have mentioned will further help people work together across disciplines. For instance, the maths institute will have chemists, physicists, computer scientists, engineers and clinicians as all are interested in how mathematics can help them solve problems. The institute for bioengineering will have engineers, physicists and clinicians - a whole range of disciplines working within that institute.

The quality of our interdisciplinary work is well recognised by big companies funding long term research. GSK, Shell, BP, Mitsubishi and the Singapore government are working with us. The Gates Foundation gift to the Schistosomiasis programme is a good example of how Imperial is seen as a powerhouse in areas where we have disciplines that can be brought to bear on major problems.

You'll only solve the great problems if you coordinate the efforts of excellent people. It's no good having a few good physicists and half a dozen people in medicine.

They may be potential world beaters but by themselves they are isolated and unable to contribute that much. Clusters of excellent people working together can provide a very powerful organisation.

What else will help attract the best from around the world?
The environment in which we live is unbelievably pleasant. You can walk out into Exhibition Road or Cromwell Road or Queen's Gate and Hyde Park and these are beautiful areas with beautiful buildings.

It's not just the Imperial estate that's good - the whole area is a rather special environment and it's difficult to believe how you could be any luckier.

If we, in turn, can offer everything else that's first class, the only downside then is the cost of working here, but people will deal with that providing that everything else is right.

You have worked hard to build up global connections and where we stand in Europe. What part does being involved in partnerships like the IDEA League and Oak Ridge Associated Universities play in the future for Imperial?
It's all part of the big picture as Imperial has to be connected withinin international networks.

Rector Sir Richard Sykes, right, receives the commemorative joining plaque from Dr John Nemeth, Vice President, Partnership Development at Oak Ridge Associated Universities

In terms of Europe, being associated with some of the top technical universities such as ETH Zürich, RWTH Aachen and TU Delft is important as together we have a voice to which politicians, lawmakers and policy makers will listen. Together, we are a great strength in Europe.

That's the good thing about this relationship. It's small enough for us to get together to have agreements, make decisions and lobby about the way tertiary education particularly is going in Europe, as well as funding and research.

It's important to have that voice which is why the IDEA League is so crucial.

As far as the US is concerned, we have strong relationships with many universities - the Georgia Institute of Technology is a good example.

Being the first UK university to be a member of Oak Ridge is also vital.

It brings the name of Imperial College to the attention of Americans at a level which is important to us.

The science is also very important because there are excellent facilities at Oak Ridge to which we can have access, and of which many people can take advantage.