Academics in discussion

Through the Academic Strategy, we will identify new College-level priorities and opportunities that we are uniquely placed to exploit. These may include new programmes, centres or research focus; investing in people, space and infrastructure; building new partnerships and communities; or responding to external challenges. We will work across our faculties, departments and Global Challenge Institutes to identify key actions that will help our community to drive this agenda. 

Over the next few years, we will implement a number of these projects through investment of people, time, space and money. As well as investing the College’s resources, we will also build partnerships and engage our external stakeholders to help us deliver our priorities and achieve our ambition.

We will also continue to invest in our fundamental science and core disciplines, and departments and faculties will continue to have responsibility for maintaining excellence in these areas. This approach is critical for our future, because without these strengths we cannot capitalise on our imme diate opportunities – or on the unknown opportunities of the future. Together we will build on our strengths by identifying and enabling opportunities that reach across the College.

Selecting our strategic priorities

Twice a year (June and December), the Academic Strategy Gateway Board will consider a gathered field of proposals brought forward from the academic community, through a ‘3 Gateway' prioritisation process (PDF) . Proposals need to demonstrate engagement, impact across multiple Faculties and be endorsed by a Dean, Vice-Provost or Associate Provost.

Proposals selected for further development will be considered at a second and possibly third ‘gateway’, depending on the complexity of the project and the scale of the investment required. Depending on the nature of the proposal, some projects will need to be triaged into existing College processes for consideration, for example, capital or IT projects.

Seven academic strategy priority projects have been selected so far to receive seed funding investment over the first two or three years of the initiative. Discover more about the current projects.

The next Gateway meeting will take place on Wednesday 28 June and the deadline for proposals is Wednesday 31 May. For more information on the prioritisation process and deadlines, view the '3 Gateway’ prioritisation process (PDF) and contact academicstrategy@imperial.ac.uk