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University College London

University College London

University College London (UCL) has recently announced a partnership with Yale University to improve the human condition through translational medicine.

Translational medicine aims to improve patient treatments using molecular and cellular discoveries. This research focussed approach aims to increase the speed at which discoveries made in the laboratory are turned into remedies that can be used to treat patients.

Initial research will focus on cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurosciences but will also expand into other areas of basic research, including cancer biology, neuroscience and women’s health.

UCL was recently ranked fourth in The Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings, and Yale ranked third.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered an unusual kind of meteorite in the Western Australian desert and have uncovered where in the Solar System it came from using a new camera network.

Meteorites are the only surviving physical record of the formation of our Solar System. By analysing meteorites, researchers can learn valuable information about the conditions that existed when the Solar System was being formed.

However, information about where individual meteorites originated, and how they were moving around the Solar System prior to falling to Earth, is available for only a dozen of around 1100 documented meteorite falls over the past two hundred years.

The new meteorite, which is about the size of cricket ball, is the first to be retrieved since researchers from Imperial set up their cameras to track meteorites falling in Australia. They hope that their new desert network could yield many more findings.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Outside the stunning new Dawin Centre

Outside the stunning new Dawin Centre

The new Darwin Centre, an inspirational new museum collection that will safeguard 17 million insect and three million plant specimens, has been opened at the Natural History Museum by Prince William.

A new state-of-the-art scientific research facility within the Centre will be used by over 200 scientists at a time. Visitors will be allowed to journey deep into the heart of the eight-storey cocoon.

Once inside, visitors can watch scientists at work in laboratories and question them about their cutting-edge research.

Natural history footage is available to visitors in the high-tech Attenborough Studio and curious visitors can interact with the 12-metre Climate Change Wall which opens up a hidden world at the Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum is also a world-leading science research centre and was selected by Time Out magazine as one of the Seven Wonders of London.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre

A new five storey innovation centre offering 3,900 square metres of laboratory space, plus an auditorium and a café has opened at Queen Mary, University of London.

The laboratory design will allow tenants to specify the internal division of their labs and the ratio of wet-lab to write up space.

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre is designed for start-ups and more mature companies in the biosciences, environmental, nanotech and clean-tech sectors.

The Centre is part of a new medical district in central London and will be located next to both the Barts and the London School of Medicine & Dentistry and the Royal London Hospital.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

London School of Economics and Political Science (image: N.Stead/LSE)

London School of Economics and Political Science (image: N.Stead/LSE)

London School of Economics, in association with Deutsche Bank, have announced the establishment of LSE Cities, an international centre for urban excellence starting in January 2010.

With an endowment of £1 million per annum from Deutsche Bank, the Centre will develop new programmes of research, education and outreach focusing on the future of the city. The Centre will bring together academics and policymakers, architects and planners, to discuss the needs of future generations of urban residents.

With an estimated 75 percent of the world’s population living in cities by 2050, our understanding of the environmental and social impact of urban settlements has never been so important.

Alongside climate change, food production and water shortages, the future of the planet will be shaped by the way cities are designed and managed, affecting the lives of billions of urban dwellers.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Roehampton University

Roehampton University

Roehampton University has signed a cooperation agreement with the College of Technology at the Vietnam National University to develop a joint Master’s degree in information management.

The degree is the first in a number of Master’s degrees that the institutions will develop together, with a business Master’s next on the agenda.

This is the second South East Asia partnership for Roehampton, who recently established a relationship with the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia to run a joint MSc in Psychology, helping to address Cambodia’s shortage of psychology practitioners.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

University College London

University College London

University College London (UCL) has announced that it will be placing all its research online and giving free access to anyone who wants to use it.

Open Access is a new form of dissemination for published books, articles, conference proceedings and digital material. Its principles are based on the Berlin Declaration, which urges authors to retain the rights in the materials they produce and to place a copy in an Open Access medium – in UCL’s case the university’s online database – so that they are freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world.

This move places UCL at the forefront of academic institutions that are pioneering the move to Open Access and has already given all of its PhD students the option of making their theses available online. The database will be launched in the coming months allowing the university to showcase its research to a global audience.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

microsoftMicrosoft recently opened its ‘Search Technology Centre’ in London to design and develop search products for the internet. The Centre specialises in the user experience, such as working out improvements to layout and displaying results.

The London centre is Microsoft’s largest European search centre and Jordi Ribas, General Manager at the Centre pointed to London’s wealth of skilled graduates as a key reason for locating in the city.

“A key factor was the availability of top talent” Jordi said. “It’s critical for an organisation like ours to be able to tap into the best talent and some of Europe’s leading universities are here in London. We focus on people that have masters or PhD degrees in machine learning or similar technologies and there are excellent colleges in London.”

Jordi also sees significant growth in their operations in the coming years, in both internet businesses in general and in particular with search. With thousands of IT graduates to choose from, Microsoft has made the right choice.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

The orange pod above Queen May's science laboratory

The orange pod above Queen Mary's science laboratory

A groundbreaking new science education centre will open at Queen Mary, University of London in September.

Centre of the Cell is the first science education centre in the world to be sited within working biomedical research laboratories.

Over 30,000 people are expected to visit the futuristic orange cell-shaped ‘Pod’ suspended within the award-winning Blizard Building in Whitechapel. Students will be able to watch scientists at work while inside the Pod.

The Centre will also provide students with the opportunity to use a combination of digital interactives, films and high powered microscopes. Students can even grow their own virtual stem cells for research.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

King’s College London and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) will jointly fund PhD students who pursue research degrees at King’s.

King’s College London

King’s College London

Successful applicants will receive a scholarship to pay their tuition fees and an annual living allowance which includes health insurance, a return airfare to London and visa application fees. The agreement between King’s and the CSC will be effective for three years with the first intake of PhD students expected in September 2010.

The Scholarship programme follows the establishment of King’s China Institute under the leadership of Xinzhong Yao, professor of Chinese Ethics. The Institute aims to encourage more British students to develop an interest in China, while also providing more academic support for Chinese students at King’s.

At present King’s has more than 400 students from China and Hong Kong. The university also has partnerships with institutions such as the University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Renmin University and Fudan University.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

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