Talent and Skills

To remain globally competitive in research, the UK must nurture top domestic talent and attract the best minds from around the world - regardless of background. Imperial’s research-intensive education equips students with the skills to innovate and lead growth, including across the key sectors of the Industrial Strategy.

• Launched in August 2025, Imperial has partnered with the University of Cumbria to open the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine in Carlisle, which will focus on delivering the highest standard of training to improve health outcomes in Cumbria and the North West. 

• The Imperial Maths School is a specialist sixth-form maths school based in north London which opened in September 2023, accepting sixth form students taking maths and further maths, alongside a range of other subjects, with a focus on attracting more female, BAME and other underrepresented students in STEM. 

• Our Institute of Extended Learning expands beyond Imperial’s degree programmes to offer advanced STEMB training to individuals, businesses, governments and other organisations. 

Delivering high-quality STEMB education requires sustainable funding. Imperial faces a median annual deficit of £6,000 per undergraduate (2023/24). Protecting high-cost subject funding via the Office for Students’ Strategic Priorities Grant is vital.

International staff and students are vital to the UK’s science and innovation talent pipeline and culturally enrich our campus. Almost 40% of Imperial’s staff and 60% of our students are from outside the UK – our scientific strength is built on the creativity, collaboration and innovation of our international community. 

Many of our international students remain in the UK as business founders and entrepreneurs, creating new jobs and investment across the UK. Two-thirds of the founding teams in the final of our flagship student entrepreneurship competitions, WE Innovate and the Venture Catalyst Challenge, had at least one international student co-founder. Some recent examples of startups founded by international students are below.

• Puraffinity was formed in 2015 by two Imperial international students, Henrik Hagemann from Denmark and Gabi Santosa from Indonesia, a green technology company that has developed materials that remove harmful ‘forever’ chemicals from wastewater. The company is based in the White City Innovation District, at the heart of the WestTech London innovation ecosystem. Expanding on their R&D headquarters in Scale Space, Puraffinity is now developing an outsourced manufacturing facility in Middlesbrough in the North East, which will create highly-skilled jobs in the region. In September 2024, Puraffinity completed their £17 million Series A funding round, which will enable them to scale up their manufacturing capabilities from product to market.
• Notpla, a company founded by Imperial students Pierre Paslier from France and Rodrigo Garcia from Spain, has developed a seaweed-based biodegradable alternative to plastic. In December 2022, Notpla became the first UK-based company to win the Prince of Wales’ Earthshot prize. Notpla’s product has so far replaced over 15 million single-use plastic packages, and successfully raised £20m of investment in their latest funding round closed in September 2024.
• Multus is a biotechnology company helping create lab-grown meat, by developing an animal-free alternative to blood serum used in these ‘clean’ meats founded by four Imperial students: Reka Tron from Hungary, Cai Linton from the UK, Kevin Pan from Austria and Brandon Ma from South Korea. Multus won a highly prestigious European Innovation Council grant worth €2.5m in June 2022, which has been followed by successfully raising £7.9m of investment in early 2023. The company has now opened the world’s first pilot manufacturing plant, greatly increasing the growth potential for the global cultivated meat market.
• Imperial graduates Paul Mendieta (Ecuador) and Beren Kayali (Turkey), founded DEPLOY which has developed an air-deployed, ready-to-use water tank capable of holding 14,000 litres of water that has a 70% lower carbon footprint than conventional water tanks. Now based in South Wales, Deploy Tech are developing their product to deliver long-term sustainable growth and create and safeguard highly skilled jobs in the region. Beren also recently received a Purple Plaque from Innovate UK for winning the Women in Innovation award.