Imperial hosted Bill Gates and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for the launch of a new initiative to supercharge UK cleantech innovation. Imperial featured prominently in widespread coverage of the visit, with comments by President Hugh Brady picked up by the Press Association and The Independent.
Read more: Research Fortnight, Metro, Daily Mail, Times
In the first briefing paper from Imperial’s Transition to Zero Pollution’s strategic initiative, our academics argued that more should be done to tackle toxic emissions from tyre wear.
As part of Imperial’s Sustainability Week, the Media team pitched this to national journalists and issued a press release, which resulted in good coverage in The Guardian, The Engineer, E&T magazine and Politico's Public Health and Living Cities newsletters.
To tie in with Sustainability Week, the Media Team arranged for the BBC’s Tom Edwards to film around North London to showcase efforts to monitor residential air pollution and highlight the issue of pollution from wood-burners. The subsequent story featured on the BBC News website and across BBC Radio/TV, with Dr Ben Barratt also appearing on BBC London Radio to discuss air pollution in the capital.
An interview with the Evening Standard’s podcast gave the team an opportunity to explain what high air pollution alerts in London mean and the Environmental Research Group provided media commentary on the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) in London and the 10th anniversary of the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah.
Through a series of thought leadership pieces, Imperial’s President Hugh Brady made the case for continued association to Horizon Europe. This includes a letter in the Financial Times, in which Professor Brady emphasised the value of European collaboration and highlighted the launch of a new research project between Imperial, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Lille, and an interview with Science Business, in which Professor Brady said that the US Inflation Reduction Act makes UK association to Horizon Europe all the more crucial.
The Media team secured widespread coverage across the UK media - in outlets including the Times, the Guardian, the BBC and Sky News, for two important studies about the hormone kisspeptin. As well as issuing a press release about the findings and pitching the story to key journalists, the team worked with study participants to share their personal stories anonymously, helping the story to be picked up widely.
Read more: BBC, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, The Sun, The Independent, Sky News, iNews and the Daily Mail.
There was coverage across the BBC, including a package on BBC Breakfast, for this project by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers after the BBC were invited onto campus to film the technology in action.
Find out more: Rolling radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC World Service Digital Planet.
The Business School won a Financial Times award for teaching for its Sustainability Leadership programme. In a Financial Times special report about the awards, the School’s recent partnership with the global management consulting firm Bain to deliver a sustainability themed Executive Education programme was also highlighted. This was the result of the Media team arranging for a journalist to attend part of the course.
The Media team facilitated filming of BBC’s The Apprentice in Imperial’s Main Entrance on Exhibition Road. The show, watched by 6.58 million people, described Imperial as ‘one of the world’s top universities for science and engineering’.
Major national and international publications, including The Times, ITV News, CNN, The Washington Post, Daily Mail, and Daily Telegraph, covered this study following a press release from the Media team.
The Media team pitched an exclusive story to The Telegraph about woodcocks having the whitest feathers ever measured, resulting in an in-depth piece. This was followed up with a press release picked up by specialist publications including Chemistry World, Physics Today and IFL Science.
Following reports of potential new immigration policies that could place restrictions on international student numbers, we used the media to make the case for the UK remaining open to international talent. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Imperial’s President Hugh Brady warned that we risk shutting out the best students. In a statement briefed to The Guardian, Professor Brady noted that any attempt to cut international student numbers would damage universities and have a wider economic impact. Meanwhile, a letter published in The Times from Professor Maggie Dallman, Vice-President (International), noted the importance of attracting and nurturing international talent to build diverse teams that produce the best science.
A press release and targeted pitching by the Media team resulted in coverage in the Evening Standard, the Telegraph, BBC Radio 4’s Naked Scientists, and the BBC Health Check podcast for this study looking at using hair follicle transplants to help scar tissue to heal.
The Media team secured positive UK coverage, including a package on BBC News at Six, for this study. It featured in The Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, iNews, and on BBC One’s Morning Live and ITV’s Lorraine. The team used a press release and pitches to key outlets and arranged for a patient representative to speak to the BBC.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Professor Brady highlighted the increasing importance of philanthropy for universities.
Professors Neena Modi and Lesley Regan advocated for higher levels of folic acid to be added to flour and rice to help reduce the risk of birth defects. Both spoke to BBC News and Professor Modi also featured on Woman’s Hour. On a separate topic, Professor Modi also spoke to Newsnight about pressures facing the NHS.
As the AI chatbot ChatGPT made headlines, Dr Thomas Lancaster discussed emerging AI technologies and the challenges these pose for universities assessing students’ work. He was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme and appeared in two articles in The Guardian, one about university assessments and another about a Google chatbot’s AI blunder.
The Media team secured an interview with the BBC for Professor Wendy Barclay about a new COVID-19 variant, highlighting what we know and how worrying it is.
The Financial Times spoke to Professor Michele Dougherty for a feature about the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer space mission (JUICE), due to launch next month, on which Professor Dougherty is a Principal Investigator.
Professor Danny Altmann was the subject of The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4, talking about his work on T-cells and Long Covid.
Professor Altmann discussed his concerns around the XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 with iNews and spoke to the Daily Mail.
Following a tour of the White City campus, a journalist at the FT interviewed Professor Ramana Nanda about Imperial’s new Institute for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship at White City.
Professor Sadaf Ghaem-Maghami spoke to journalists about a study she led, finding that a revolutionary surgical knife which was developed at Imperial and can ‘smell tumours’ can diagnose womb cancer within seconds. The study captured interest internationally with Professor Ghaem-Maghami later speaking to ABC News and Le Monde.
In response to a feature about the UK’s dream of becoming a ‘science superpower’, a letter from Professor Mary Ryan was published in the Financial Times to make the case for more support for Deep Tech innovations.
Following a pitch from the Media team, BBC Health Check interviewed Dr Mehdi Saeidi about a new low-cost device for fixing bones, which was developed at Imperial. The fixator is being trialled in Ukraine, Gaza and Sri Lanka. The device was also covered by The Engineer after the Media team issued a press release.
Find out more: BBC Sounds (listen from 06:18).
Following pitches to journalists highlighting Imperial’s expertise in the dangers posed by fungal pathogens, coinciding with the launch of the dystopian TV series The Last of Us, Professor Mat Fisher featured in pieces in The Guardian and CNN and was interviewed on the New Scientist podcast. Dr Johanna Rhodes spoke to The Times.
Dr Friederike Otto (Grantham Institute) was quoted in outlets including The Washington Post and Bloomberg, discussing a study she co-authored on the links between climate change and the South American drought.
This figure shows us the number of pieces of coverage in our most valued media outlets (print, online and broadcast) for example: global outlets like the BBC; broadsheets like The Times, Guardian, Telegraph; mass media outlets like The Daily Mail and The Sun; international outlets like The Washington Post and China Global Television Network; influential news wire services like Reuters; and radio stations like ABC and CBC.
Media coverage in January/February 2023 was up by 24% compared to November/December 2022. This is largely due to December being traditionally quieter than most months due to College closure.
The vast majority (2365 pieces / 63%) of coverage in Jan/Feb 2023 was by UK media, which is a traditional proportion for Imperial. This was followed by the United States (843 pieces / 22%). The overall geographical footprint of coverage was very similar to Nov/Dec 2022.
In Jan/Feb 2023, The Daily Mail, Telegraph and Times carried the most pieces relating to Imperial.
It was similar in Nov/Dec 2022, however Guardian published fewer pieces on Imperial than it did in Nov/Dec 2022.
In Jan/Feb 2023, the highest volume of TV and radio coverage were in BBC regional TV programming, followed by regional radio stations in the US. It was a similar picture in Nov/Dec 2022.
The most significant feature of Jan/Feb is the high number of BBC regional television coverage, with stories such as the ERG's air pollution studies being widely syndicated on the regional news bulletins (especially in London).
This chart shows us the prevalence of keywords contained within the media coverage. We see that in Jan/Feb 2023 the most common words refer to studies and ovarian cancer. A lot of this is connected to the study about how shopping data can help spot early signs of cancer.
In Nov/Dec 2022, the most common words refer to activity of a global nature, and of relevance to children – such as expert commentary on Strep A and winter respiratory illness outbreaks in young children.
In Jan/Feb 2022 , the most significant peak in coverage was on 27 January for the study about how shopping data can help spot early signs of cancer, which was covered widely in the UK press.
In Nov/Dec 2022 (not depicted above), the largest peak in coverage by far related to Imperial expert commentary on the outbreak of Strep A in the UK, and the consequent impact on penicillin prescription levels (14 Dec).