Cover: Esme Carpenter, Joan Reece PhD Fellow, and Melek Akay, Joan Reece Clinical
INTRODUCTION FROM Vice-Chancellor & President
Professor Shitij Kapur
As Vice-Chancellor & President of King’s College London, I am delighted to be introducing our Impact Report for 2024. The achievements of this year have been outstanding.
As you read on, I hope you are as proud as I am to be part of this remarkable community.
This year, King’s has once again been at the cutting edge of groundbreaking research and worldleading impact. From improving access to justice at the King’s Legal Clinic, to the search for new treatments and cures for people with life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses, to understanding and addressing the causes of underrepresentation, making the world a better place is at the core of who we are.
This has been our legacy for nearly 200 years. Since our founding, King’s has brought together the best and brightest minds, harnessing the power of knowledge to create meaningful and positive change. As we continue this legacy, we have identified five areas of focus. These will help us strengthen our collective impact and actively address the most urgent and deep-rooted issues in the world today.
As we are faced with an urgent climate emergency, we are committed to a thriving sustainable planet. As the landscape of mental and physical health faces mounting challenges, we are pioneering advancements for whole-life health for mind and body. As disparities increase in every part of society, we are advancing equality and social mobility. As violence, conflict, persecution and injustice continue to affect millions, we are striving for peace and justice in a turbulent world. And, as technological advances surge ahead, we are designing a future where everyone can use technology for good.
It is thanks to people like you that we are able to commit to these goals, and I would like to take this as an opportunity to say thank you. Whether you have donated money, given your time or shared your expertise, I hope the stories in this report demonstrate what an incredible impact your support can have. I know we share a common ambition: to leave this world a better place than we found it. I look forward to continuing to drive this mission forward together for many years to come.
Thank you once again.
Professor Shitij Kapur Vice-Chancellor & President
THE YEAR IN REVIEW 2024
The newly opened London Institute for Healthcare Engineering begins to unlock the potential of innovative medical technologies to change the lives of patients around the world.
Led by researchers from King’s, a study has discovered that the serrated edges of Komodo dragons’ teeth are tipped with iron, and may provide clues as to how dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex killed and ate their prey.
King’s Quantum launches, a research centre designed to leverage quantum technology, multidisciplinary expertise and knowledge as part of a £45m investment in science at King’s.
Researchers find offering human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling kits to under-screened women could enable over a million more women in England to participate in cervical screening over the next three years.
Giant soft robots take over the Strand at the launch of Glowbot Garden, a spectacular experience that gives people of all ages the opportunity to interact with these incredible creations.
80 students from King’s Maths School take on an Entrepreneurship Institute innovation challenge to help tackle London's cost-of-living crisis using disruptive and entrepreneurial solutions.
The King’s community share their stories and host events to mark Refugee Week, a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
King’s receives the Student Minds University Mental Health Charter Award, recognising our wholeuniversity approach to mental health and wellbeing, and making us one of 10 UK higher education institutions to achieve the Award.
Parent Power, a programme empowering communities in Lambeth and Southwark to address educational inequality and social justice issues, wins an award for outstanding contribution to the local London community.
The Princess Royal meets with researchers, clinicians and collaborators of the UNITY Consortium to discuss the introduction of non-invasive, low-cost portable MRIs to subSaharan African and South Asian countries.
His Majesty King Charles III becomes Royal Patron of King’s College London, continuing a long and valued association between the monarch and King’s College London: one of England’s oldest and most prestigious universities.
At the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, we lead research teams in England to link electronic mental healthcare records to individual census data, addressing the absence of socio-economic data and enabling the social factors of severe mental illness to be examined.
KING’S IN NUMBERS
HISTORY
1860
The year the Florence Nightingale Nursing Centre was opened by the groundbreaking nurse. This world-leading school evolved into our Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care.
1885
The year King’s Women’s Department was created. King’s educated many of the first female students in England, including suffragette Edith Morley, the UK’s first female professor.
1984
King’s alumnus Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work opposing apartheid in South Africa.
2024
King’s mascot Reggie the Lion turned 101, still keeping up a fierce rivalry with University College London!
RESEARCH & RANKINGS
Top 2% of global universities for social and environmental impact in the 2024 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings.
4th
King’s does more to unite engineering and healthcare than any other university in the UK, ranking fourth in the world for medical technologies research.
Top 20 most-targeted university by the UK’s leading graduate employers.
150 dentists a year graduating from King’s, as the UK’s largest provider of medical and dental degrees.
5 King’s alumni competed in the 2024 Olympics.
72 King’s alumni (68) and staff (4) recognised in this year’s King’s honours.
400+ societies, activity groups and sports clubs run by KCL Students’ Union.
827 King’s alumni volunteered.
8,925 volunteering hours.
30,000 visitors to the Science Gallery London AI season – a playful and questioning look at this fastdeveloping technology from a range of perspectives.
4 awards won by King’s Food at the Public Sector Catering Awards for reducing food waste, promoting sustainability and providing nutritious food.
5th in the People & Planet University League (2023 –24), the only comprehensive and independent league table of 151 UK universities ranked by environmental and ethical performance.
59 teams across King’s received sustainability awards as part of the King’s Sustainability Champions programme.
64 new solar panels added to the top of Bush House, saving the planet 14.7 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Creating impact through unity Uniting our ambitions to tackle global challenges
For almost 200 years, King’s has been on the forefront of global progress, using our knowledge to improve the world around us. Service is a cornerstone of our academic mission, standing alongside education and research as pillars of our commitment to society.
But today, the world is facing monumental challenges that are vast, complex and interconnected: from the climate crisis, and mass forced displacement, to debates about the safe and ethical use of technological advancements, and mounting physical and mental health pressures. These challenges are too complex to have simple answers, too urgent to be postponed, too big to be solved alone. And they do not adhere to academic boundaries.
At King’s, we know that meaningful impact takes a collective effort, and at this pivotal time collaboration is our strongest asset. Whilst we already deliver extensive contributions to society, we know that the multidisciplinary work required to solve global challenges needs to be more consciously nurtured and supported. We want to intentionally bring together diverse perspectives, knowledge bases and methodologies, allowing for more comprehensive
understanding and innovative solutions to multifaceted universal problems that can be implementable in real-world contexts. These solutions need to be sustainable and equitable, relevant and practical.
We will accelerate our work in building bridges between different academic departments, institutions and external partners, seeking hyperlocal solutions that are scalable and applicable worldwide. As part of this, we want to continue to utilise our home in London to our advantage, collaborating with the blend of communities, business and economic centres, unparalleled culture, and governmental institutions and political powers that are on our doorstep.
At King’s, we also recognise the increased desire for students to understand the real-world contribution their university is making; a 2021 Times Higher Education survey showed that
over 85 per cent of prospective students agreed that institutions have an important role to play in enhancing sustainable citizenship in their students and in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Creating a King’s-wide approach
In 2022, a university-wide consultation set out to understand how our King’s communities can collaborate in order to connect and enhance our work and achieve societal benefit in the most effective way by tackling the major issues facing society today. We took the opportunity to think about what we could focus on – which challenges is King’s uniquely placed to tackle, and which are also novel, wanted, distinctive and exciting?
This consultation, conducted with nearly 500 people from across and beyond the institution, helped us to determine five Impact Priorities to focus our expertise where King’s can make a distinct contribution:
• A thriving and sustainable planet, one we safeguard and steward with urgency.
• Whole-life health for mind and body through pioneering advancements in prevention, medicine and healthcare
• Advancing equality and social mobility so that access and attainment are not defined by background.
• Peace and justice in a turbulent world to strengthen resilience and forge pathways to sanctuary.
• Technology for good. Designing a future that empowers us to live well with technology
A revolutionary type of impact culture
Following this first phase of identifying the five Impact Priorities, we next developed an overarching, holistic approach that will work across disciplinary and university boundaries to enhance the positive impact on our world.
Called One King’s Impact, the programme has been constructed to unite our large, multi-faculty
organisation, and strengthen our Strategy 2026 ambition to be impact driven in all that we do.
‘Impact-led research is crucial for our communities because it transforms academic knowledge into real-world solutions,’ said Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor & President of King’s. ‘By focusing on tangible outcomes, we not only advance knowledge, but also create meaningful, positive change that improves lives and fosters a more equitable and sustainable society.’
One King’s Impact works towards the five Impact Priority areas, as we develop a co-ordinated portfolio of work rooted in social purpose and spanning departments, faculties, professional services and alumni, working with academia, corporations, charities and governments to drive impact. We are fostering and supporting a culture that focuses on this real-world solution development and cultivates a distinct multidisciplinary approach.
A portfolio of excellence
As part of our commitment to enabling this work, we launched the One King’s Impact investment fund. With an initial investment of £1,000,000, the first round of funding opened for applications in Spring 2024, and over 60 project proposals from across the university were submitted, spanning all five Impact Priorities.
A panel, chaired by Professor ‘Funmi Olonisakin, Vice-President for International, Engagement & Service, selected nine projects
for funding that exemplified the One King’s Impact approach and showed potential for development and scalability.
‘The One King’s Impact Fund aims to build a community around the issues and problems we have identified we are in a unique place to make a meaningful, positive contribution to,’ said Professor Olonisakin. ‘It was very exciting to review the applications, as so many understood the relevance of engaging a mix of expertise from the start, working locally to achieve something global. It is indicative of the appetite and knowledge within the university to work in this holistic, multidisciplinary and impact-driven way, as we continue King’s mission to make a positive difference in the world.’
The funded projects include a digital intervention proven to reduce anxiety and depression that will be developed for NHS staff, social enterprise and charitable sector rollouts; a cross-sector engagement and communications campaign that will support a new centre for end-of-life care; a mentorship and career insights
programme for aspiring Black physics students; and an English language proficiency course for Latin American parents in our local boroughs that will work to increase representation of Latin American students at King’s.
We recognise the value of, and are investing in, the One King’s Impact approach and are committed to fostering a multidisciplinary impact culture at the university. By uniting diverse disciplines, professions and communities, we will continue making a significant and lasting positive difference.
For more information and updates about the One King’s Impact programme and funded projects, take a look at kcl.ac.uk/impact
A thriving and sustainable planet
Humans have dramatically changed the global climate system. Now, many countries are working to decarbonise their economies. At the same time, societies are learning to adapt to changing and more variable climates. Our energy, food, transport and urban systems are undergoing sustainability transitions and adapting towards greater climate resilience. But these transformations are difficult and generate new social, political and cultural tensions.
At King’s, we are committed to addressing the impact of climate change and supporting societies’ transition to environmental and social sustainability, preserving a thriving and sustainable planet. With our depth and breadth of expertise, and local, national and global connections, as well as a highly interdisciplinary ethos, we are stepping up our response to the climate crisis. We have the deep expertise and experience across disciplines, from water to wildfire, to drive changes in our societies and economies that the climate crisis calls for. Through globally impactful research, education and action to understand, we will critique and enable societal transitions towards environmental and social sustainability.
FINDING THE SOLUTION TO WATER PROBLEMS
For our blue planet, managing our relationship with water is critical to our continued survival. With constant and growing pressures on our natural resources, water is at the heart of so many issues affecting our environment and our global population. From access to clean water, to rising sea levels, to implementing progressive water policies, the King’s Water Centre seeks to tackle the world’s water problems through impactdriven research, innovation and collaboration.
Impact through innovation
From the melting ice caps to devastating floods and ever-more frequent droughts, the future of our water affects everyone. For example, a recent UNESCO and UN-Water report, stated that between two and three billion people worldwide are currently experiencing water shortages. Closer to home for King’s, we see regular headlines around sewage in rivers across the UK. And recent studies have shown millions more could be displaced by rising sea levels. Not only is this a day-to-day reality, impacting on the most basic functions, it poses severe risks to livelihoods, food security and access to reliable energy.
This is why King’s Water Centre is designed to develop science with real impact: innovation that will solve the most serious water problems, sooner. The Centre is our focal point for research expertise on water, the environment and development, taking a strong interdisciplinary approach across the social and physical sciences. By bringing together the best people, we’re able to make an effective impact on the challenges of water governance on a local and global scale.
Understanding the risk and finding the answers
The Centre has continued to make significant impact through research, collaboration and policy development, helping us to understand how we can mend our relationship with water. For example, PLuS Alliance, an education and innovation partnership between King’s, Arizona State University and UNSW Sydney, is helping further uncover and understand the risks posed to river basins around the world. River basins not only provide the foundation for many fragile ecosystems but supply much of the fresh water for urban communities, industry and agriculture across the world. As we tackle global climate change, the interdisciplinary expertise and practical solutions forged within our Water Centre will help countries around the world apply fresh thinking to what is widely considered to be among the greatest development challenges facing humanity.
We also used our expertise and influence on the world stage, delivering a hard-hitting policy brief to the UN 2023 Water Conference. The paper highlighted the lack of engagement and preparedness from Central Asian states in tackling growing water crises, calling for more proactive involvement of Global South countries in global water governance. The authors made recommendations for future global events to support closer co-operation among countries, so we can work together on reaching the agreed UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Uncovering the truth about safe water supplies
There is growing evidence revealing insecure and unaffordable access to running water in high-income countries, especially for lowincome, urban and racialised households. This brings into question the state of social infrastructures, and leaders’ commitment to ‘universal’ water provision, a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal.
Directed by Dr Katie Meehan, a geographer and co-director of King’s Water Centre, the Plumbing Poverty project (2023 –28) is a €1 99 million funded project committed to explaining insecure water access and water service shut-offs in relation to the changing political economy of public service provision and housing. The project will uncover the hidden geographies of water insecurity in high-income countries, developing knowledge to change policy and practice. The Plumbing Poverty project was awarded a prestigious Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council and is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme.
A new leader for an environmentally conscious world: Heather Needham
Heather Needham (Geography, 2001) works as the Biodiversity Manager at the University of Oxford. After spending a week at King’s summer school, supported by the Sutton Trust, she chose to study geography with us, enjoying the
comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach and many opportunities to develop new skills, and engage in fieldwork in the UK and overseas. Her studies and career to date have taken her around the world, from the Atlas Mountains to Chile, the Sahara Desert and Botswana. And, throughout, Heather has been empowered by support. From the Sutton Trust to the RGS Fieldwork Apprenticeship Grant and the King’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
2.2 billion people still live without access to safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation.1
If we were to stop global warming today, we would still be likely to see glaciers shrink by
40 to 50 %2
And as she continues to forge a powerful path in the field of biodiversity, winning the King’s Wellington Medal for outstanding academic achievement, developing documentaries for the Darwin200 project and receiving personal praise from Sir David Attenborough for her work, we want to celebrate Heather’s achievements so far, which typify the impact of King’s graduates, and look forward to watching her career continue to flourish.
Every day, it becomes clearer that our human activities must become even more sustainable. The climate emergency and loss to biodiversity need urgent action and fresh thinking. Across sectors, firms have made bold sustainability commitments, ranging from becoming net zero, climate positive or circular, to reversing damage by becoming regenerative. And while there is now little doubt on why businesses need to change, there is still the central question of how firms can develop and implement socially and environmentally sustainable practices. This gap is exactly why the Centre for Sustainable Business has been created at King’s, helping industries, brands and businesses make the changes they want and need to ensure a healthier future for people and the planet.
Supporting business sustainability
Launched in March 2024, our new Centre for Sustainable Business (CSB) has already established itself as a dynamic and impactful part of the award-winning King’s Business School. Launched with seed funding of £3m from King’s, the Centre will act as a major catalyst to drive positive sustainable changes for businesses across diverse sectors around the world.
Through research, education and collaboration, the Centre aims to ask (and answer): How can businesses effectively transition to socially and environmentally sustainable practices?
The Centre provides a mechanism for change, inspiring the convergence of business, society and the environment in the pursuit of a sustainable future. It focuses on the ‘how’ of sustainable business and building proof of what actually works. It provides businesses with insights and practical solutions, and is influencing policies that can redefine business practices and contribute to the global sustainability agenda.
The Centre is maximising impact across a vast breadth of sectors, from retail to finance and food, and from fashion to technology. And, to make sure we’re tackling the urgency and scale of today’s vast socio-ecological challenges, the Centre is designed to deliver solutions to critical environmental issues in alignment with social and economic considerations. This is how it will produce truly sustainable answers for people and planet.
For example, the Centre is collaborating with major industry players to look at how advertising companies can most effectively promote businesses from other sectors that are striving to improve their sustainability credentials. This is shaping practical recommendations for the advertising industry, helping it take tangible steps to drive positive change while retaining profitability.
The Centre is convened by Professor Jonatan Pinkse, Director of CSB. Professor Pinkse is an expert in corporate sustainability, innovation for net zero, and digital technologies and platforms. He is working alongside Dr Catherine Tilley, Impact Director of CSB, who brings with her a wealth of knowledge across business ethics and sustainability.
‘We know that businesses are serious about sustainability, but the way forward is difficult and change is needed fast. We can contribute by educating the next generation of activist leaders and identifying practical ideas that will help to drive that change. Through the CSB and our collaboration with experts from across King’s and partners around the globe, we will accelerate that impact.’ Professor Stephen Bach, Executive Dean, King’s Business School
Sustainability from all angles
While other centres often adopt a particular focus – such as climate finance or leadership for sustainability – the CSB takes a holistic approach, considering all aspects of today’s biggest challenges. Its work spans finance, marketing, leadership, strategy, ethics, inequity and innovation and has already produced new insight into ‘insider social change agents’, engaging with young consumers, making use of AI for sustainability and reimagining advertising. We see interdisciplinary research and collaboration as key to making impact and shaping progress. Our Sustainable Synergies workshop series, for example, unites experts from across King’s to develop impactful grant applications. With the potential to create innovative and powerful collaborations, from business leadership to global water security, and from ethical AI to climate policy change. As such, the Centre operates far beyond the typical remit of a centre for research excellence. It brings together a broad set of stakeholders from
academia, industry, public sector and civil society to discover, design, develop and implement solutions to real-world sustainability priorities. The Centre’s four thematic challenges are:
1) How do we make sure consumers automatically consider sustainability?
Our research looks beyond the traditional study of consumer values, beliefs and intentions, instead examining models of consumption – the complex factors that shape how consumers actually consume.
2) How can new business models drive long-term sustainability?
To deliver new models of consumption, we need to reconfigure businesses – from reorganising supply chains to redefining models of value
creation. We’re harnessing expertise across King’s to drive interdisciplinary research.
3) How do we robustly and consistently assess sustainability performance?
Investors cannot fairly compare individual companies, making it difficult to know where to invest. Research is the key: from developing new performance-assessment models to driving the standardisation of reporting.
4) How can leaders champion sustainability throughout their organisation and beyond it?
King’s is exploring new approaches to leadership, nurturing individuals who can lead beyond their organisation to drive systemic change, and who distribute responsibility throughout organisations to embed it long term.
Sustainability is a King’s-wide ambition
The Centre is truly the embodiment of our university’s larger institutional commitment to sustainability and our ambition for impact. It’s a very deliberate part of the growth of King’s Business School, which since its inception in 2017 has become one of the largest management institutions in London, appearing in the top 10 in the UK for business and management studies three years in a row.
As an institution, we’ve continued to accelerate our sustainability agenda. We’re now rapidly scaling our response to the climate emergency through King’s Climate & Sustainability, a cross-university drive to progress transformative multidisciplinary research and embed sustainability into our impact, teaching, partnerships and operations.
King’s has a vital role to play in enabling sustainability transitions, building resilience to the impacts of climate change and preserving a thriving and sustainable planet. To reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 demands deep transformation of economies and energy systems, including ramping up clean energy production, phasing out fossil fuels, reversing
Professor Jonatan Pinkse at a glance
Jonatan Pinkse is a Professor of Sustainable Business and the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Business at King’s Business School. His research focuses on how companies can transition to sustainable business practices and achieve their net zero goals. Professor Pinkse has published extensively on topics such as business and net zero, tensions in sustainable business, business model innovation, and digital innovation for sustainability. His work gives valuable insights into the business opportunities
The fashion industry as a whole is responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions.3
the destruction of nature, and better transport and food use choices.
In an increasingly complex, connected world facing unprecedented crises, King’s will work through education and research to understand, critique and enable societal transitions towards environmental and social sustainability as they happen.
For example, by 2026, we will provide environment, climate and sustainability education for all undergraduate students. We are proud that 100 per cent of the electricity purchased by King’s comes from UK wind energy; we rank fifth in Europe for positive environmental and social impact; we were fully divested from investments in fossil fuels in 2021 and we’re completely on track to be net zero carbon by 2030.
of sustainability while acknowledging the associated challenges.
Professor Pinkse has authored more than 70 scholarly and practitioner articles in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Studies and Journal of International Business Studies. In 2023, he was included in the Stanford University list of the top 2 per cent of the world's scientists.
He is deputy editor for the journal Organization & Environment and has edited numerous special issues. He is the theme lead of Social, Environmental & Technological Transitions of the ESRC-funded The Productivity Institute.
King’s is committed to a major step up in its research on climate and sustainability, providing almost £6m of its core funds.4
On the frontline of building sustainable business with CSB
PhD researcher Asma Atef
Mohamed Othman
Every single year humanity globally produces 57 million tonnes of electronic waste – more than the weight of the Great Wall of China – in discarded phones, laptops, televisions and other items.5
Asma Atef
Mohamed Othman CSB PhD researcher
Asma’s experience with sustainability and business is already impressive, as she holds a master’s in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the London School of Economics, and BSc and MSc degrees in Architectural Engineering (Urban Planning) from Alexandria University. Her PhD research, which began in October 2024, will focus on the integration of disruptive technologies for advancing sustainable business transitions (SBTs), exploring how technologies like AI can accelerate SBTs and achieve net zero objectives. She aims to develop a framework and strategies for firms to make significant progress within the next decade in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions across their value chains. By using AI and eco-innovation, the impact of Asma’s work will drive changes through business systems and practices. And, because it can work cross-sector, there is huge potential for scalability, providing a model for businesses to transform operations and meet sustainability targets. Asma hopes her work will contribute to a more sustainable and resilient
global economy; she sees a future where disruptive technologies move from isolated applications to holistic, systemic solutions, and where sustainable business practices are standard, powered by innovation and collaboration.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our Centre for Sustainable Business, please contact philanthropyassociates@ kcl.ac.uk
This last year has seen the impact of King’s Human Rights and Environmental Law Clinic make regular headlines. Our students have continued to use their expertise to deliver service to society progressing public interest cases and producing research projects intent on protecting the environment and promoting human rights. Students and staff have broadened King’s influence and their own expertise, collaborating closely with the world’s best academics, litigators and policymakers to strengthen positive progress here in the UK and around the world.
We live in an increasingly uncertain world, marked by unprecedented environmental challenges, geopolitical instability and constant threats to the rights of people across the planet. The urgency of our work within King’s Legal Clinic makes a very real difference to the people we serve, providing the public with free access to legal expertise and empowering our students to use their skills on live cases.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen the Clinic support more communities finding themselves affected by the impact of multinationals, particularly extractive companies – for example, in the mining or logging industries. Our students have been involved in supporting cases involving indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in Latin America, providing training for African non-governmental organisation lawyers and advising Amnesty International.
Closer to home, in January 2024, a team of students from the Human Rights and Environmental Law Clinic launched the award-winning Rights of Nature Toolkit: How to Protect Rivers in England and Wales, a practical legal guide aimed at other law students, paralegals and active communities, promoting access to justice and healthy rivers. The toolkit, which won Best Contribution by a Team of Students at the LawWorks and Attorney General Student Pro Bono Awards, was a result of over a year of research by the student team and consultation with NGOs including
London Waterkeeper and external counsel
Landmark Chambers.
Maya Pardo, PGDip Law and Professional Practice, explains: ‘We hope the toolkit will be useful to anyone who wants to campaign for the rights of rivers and hold regulators and polluters accountable. It’s an honour to have our team’s efforts recognised by the Attorney General, and I feel very privileged to have had the chance to work on this project.’
The toolkit is a serious investment from the seven students involved, representing approximately 540 volunteer hours between July 2023 and February 2024. It’s already proven to be time well spent, with the toolkit amassing 93,000 views on X (formerly Twitter). There are now plans to increase the impact of the toolkit further, using it to develop external campaigns and advocacy in the UK and abroad.
As well as collaborating with institutes and individuals across the world, we’d like to celebrate the work and successes of one particular student.
Our Rights of Nature Toolkit: How to Protect Rivers in England and Wales represents approximately 540 volunteer hours between July 2023 and February 2024 and has had over 93,000 views on X (formerly Twitter).
Laurent Sammouri, a final-year Politics, Philosophy & Law LLB student, started pro bono work by co-founding an NGO that supports women and children in Lebanon. He went on to be selected as a caseworker and researcher at the Windrush Justice Clinic, developing research that highlighted continued failures by the Windrush Compensation Scheme, to deliver fair and accessible compensation to victims of the Windrush scandal. His preliminary research work enabled Southwark Law Centre to challenge a decision refusing Windrush victims legal aid.
Laurent then became Student Director for our award-winning Human Rights and Environment Law Clinic before being appointed a King’s Undergraduate Research Fellow in June 2024. He has provided over 450 hours of pro bono legal support, and a Highly Commended accolade in the Best Contribution by an Individual Student category at the LawWorks and Attorney General Student Pro Bono Awards is deserved recognition for Laurent’s tireless commitment to justice.
It’s been a fantastic year for achieving impact at the Clinic. And King’s looks forward to celebrating future progress towards making the world a better place.
‘I applied to the Clinic because I knew it would provide a great avenue to work on meaningful and impactful projects while developing my skillset as an aspiring legal practitioner. It remains one of the most memorable highlights of my time at King’s.’ Laurent Sammouri, Final year, Politics, Philosophy & Law LLB
If you’re interested in finding out more about King’s Legal Clinic, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
King’s students involved in Art and Law workshops at the Rivers Hackathon event.
A LIFETIME OF IMPACT
If you’re searching for the definition of a life of impact, look no further than Professor Sally Marlow, our first ever King’s Professor of Practice at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN). From City of London worker to playwright, international broadcaster to juggling ball salesperson, Professor Marlow’s work has reached millions. Her current career within the IoPPN is dedicated to increasing the public understanding of mental health research. Reflecting on her inaugural lecture ‘Never Too Late’ we see in Professor Marlow an exemplar of the spirit of King’s ambition to make the world a better place.
Bringing experience to academia
Professor Sally Marlow is currently our Associate Dean of Impact at the IoPPN and Professor of Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research. Professor Marlow has travelled both geographically and creatively, and remains a truly dynamic force. Beginning her career in the City of London, Professor Marlow absorbed all that 80s London and New York had to offer. After helping build a juggling ball brand in New York, she headed for home where she married, before leaving for South Africa and Zambia, working as a management consultant and starting a family.
Her return to education began at the Open University, aged 39, culminating in completing her master’s in Addiction, and a PhD at our very own IoPPN. Professor Marlow’s mission is to make research around challenging and underrepresented topics more accessible and engaging to the public.
Her strong relationship with the BBC, founded on her successful application in 2013 to a ‘BBC Expert’ programme, has now led to the development and broadcast of over 20 documentaries on BBC Radio 4, the World Service and Radio 3, where she was the BBC’s first Researcher in Residence.
Reaching a wider audience
It’s this perfect intersection of research and communication skills that enables Professor Marlow to deliver such powerful impact through her work. Using her abilities, Professor Marlow takes hard-to-understand conditions, academic insight and clinical research and transforms them into clear and engaging content. She gives a clear voice to these very relevant subject areas – for example, through her recent series The Essay for BBC Radio 3 discussing the work of
Professor Sally Marlow Associate Dean of Impact at IoPPN & Professor of Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research.
five women artists, including Billie Holiday and Frida Kahlo, to discuss what their work tells us about the nature of addiction.
Giving her inaugural lecture as Professor in Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research to a packed auditorium in Bush House, London, Professor Marlow described the power of having the right support that helps one never give up. She spoke passionately about all those who had been by her side, who had inspired her, and to whom she wanted to pay tribute throughout her life, helping her make a difference to the lives of so many through her work.
‘I chose the title “Never Too Late” because it felt appropriate for my own career – I went back to university aged 39 and had my first radio commission aged 46. I essentially started both my academic and my broadcasting career two decades later than most people do. I wanted to demonstrate what is possible in later life. It was incredibly moving to be able to share my trajectory into academia and broadcasting with family, friends, colleagues and the public.
I was hoping to light a spark in people, especially those feeling stuck, and to embolden them to think differently.’
An exciting future ahead
This sentiment runs through Professor Marlow’s personal and professional life: a love of being with and being for people. A natural collaborator, her focus on mental health and addiction, particularly in women and young people, brings together people from across the university. Her leadership on Sound Young Minds, a King’s Together interdisciplinary project around music and mental health, shows her commitment to creativity within her work. And she played an instrumental part in the IoPPN’s collaboration with Artangel, one of the UK’s most prestigious arts organisations, to host a series of five films exploring lived experiences of psychosis for World Mental Health Day 2023
‘I was hoping to light a spark in people, especially those feeling stuck, and to embolden them to think differently.’
Professor Sally Marlow
Story title
Technology for good
Technological change is happening fast – and on a huge scale. Leaps in progress in areas such as AI, extended reality, cybersecurity, robotics and quantum computing are impacting on people, planet and society. Though not always positively.
At King’s, our goal is to forge a technological future guided by transparency, ethics and, above all, a commitment to individual and social wellbeing. Across our ecosystem, we’re prioritising the integration of psychological, social and cultural insight into the development of new technologies. We’re ensuring future technical, legal and policy innovations are rooted in rigorous ethical and historical understanding. Empowered by multidisciplinary thinking through, for example, our Digital Futures Institute and AI Institute, both of which unite thinkers from different corners of the university, and from outside of it, and through our world-leading Digital Humanities programme, training a new generation to think about technological development as a socially embedded practice with human values at its core.
We’re pioneering the use of technologies to transform healthcare and advocating for responsible, trustworthy AI. Our goal is to shape a future where technology supports living together healthily, safely, equitably and sustainably. Where technology is a force for good.
A TRUE KING’S GENIUS, DEDICATED TO LEARNING
It’s with great sadness that we marked the passing of Professor Peter Higgs who died in April 2024 at the age of 94. Professor Higgs was winner of the Nobel Prize in 2013 for his work in subatomic physics and the theoretical discovery of the Higgs boson particle, often dubbed the ‘God particle’. He began his research career at King’s, and from this formative platform went on to contribute so much that has impacted on advancing human understanding of the fundamentals of the universe.
The man who helped shape King’s and the universe
At King’s, we continue in Professor Higgs’ wake, learning more and more about the building blocks of existence. Reading his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate at King’s, he has given our Department of Physics a benchmark of excellence to constantly aim for: a challenge we relish every day. We feel confident Professor Higgs would be proud that we’re consistently ranked as one of the UK’s best physics departments, with the QS World University Rankings placing us in the top 10 universities in the country. Across biological physics and soft matter, photonics and nanotechnology, theoretical particle physics and cosmology, and experimental particle and astroparticle physics, our internationally renowned physicists are developing new ways to unlock mysteries and develop new technologies. The impact Professor Higgs had on King’s continues to run deep. Our colleague Professor John Ellis, holder of our Clerk Maxwell Professorship of Theoretical Physics, was one of the first to study how the Higgs boson could be produced and discovered. Professor Ellis is pushing forwards understanding of the Higgs particle and its implications for possible new physics such as dark matter, and as a close collaborator with CERN, where the existence of the Higgs boson was first proven, he is a relentless promoter of global collaboration in particle physics, keeping King’s at the epicentre of physics discovery and practice and forefront of innovation.
We’ve been celebrating our relationship with Professor Higgs for many years. Our annual Higgs Lecture series hosts some of the greatest minds in physics, providing a prestigious platform to share their discoveries with public audiences. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Higgs himself in 2012, and since then we’ve welcomed global luminaries to discuss ground breaking work that shapes our core knowledge of universal principles, from black hole singularities and intelligent algorithms, to complex membrane proteins and tidal bores. The lecture series gives us a fantastic opportunity to live our value of service to society, opening up our university to a wider audience, as we progress world knowledge.
Physics reimagined
The QS World University Rankings places our Department of Physics in the top 10 universities in the country.
A wider understanding and application of the work within our Physics Department continues to be pushed further. We’re increasingly combining with other subjects and using multidisciplinary methods to expand our impact and relevance. For example, crowds of thousands enjoyed our Physics Department’s artistic interpretations at the 2024 Royal Society Summer Exhibition. Led by Drs James Millen, Margarita Khokhlova and Emilio Pisanty, the King’s team explored the dynamic world of light, bringing to life the force it exerts on the world and how it is changed in kind, through a series of exhibitions and hands-on activities. The team presented The Unseen Wonders of
Professor Peter Higgs
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is a particle accelerator that pushes protons or ions to near the speed of light. That’s almost 299,792,458 metres per second.
Light with ‘Seeing the Unthinkable’, an artistic collaboration that levitates microdiamonds in the well of an ancient Chinese coin and an optical trap that uses powerful lasers to levitate nanoparticles of Sharpie pigment. Bringing together artists-in-residence Steve Claydon and Christo Squier with experimental quantum scientist Dr Millen and creative technologist Chris Ball, it is the latest in a series of exciting activities that champion a multidisciplinary approach to our work. It’s also exemplified by Dr Millen’s leadership as the Director of King’s Quantum, our research centre that leverages multidisciplinary expertise and knowledge across King’s in quantum science, to deliver transformative technology for healthcare, life sciences, security and industry.
Our physicists are helping build the world’s largest dark matter detector, as scientists believe dark matter could make up 85% of the universe.
Dr Victor Lewis at a glance
It’s with equal sadness that we say goodbye to another friend of King’s and our Department of Physics, Dr Victor Lewis, who passed away last year. In recognition of his passion for science and his happy times here, Dr Lewis kindly and graciously left King’s a gift in his will. We are incredibly grateful to have received a £1,000 gift to be used to fund a visit for PhD students to attend a seminar or conference focused on radiotherapy and metrology –areas aligned with Dr Lewis’s previous studies and work.
Without gifts like Dr Lewis’s, we could never provide opportunities to the best minds in their subjects, who help us advance global understanding across so many disciplines.
If you are inspired by his gift and would like to support future students with a gift in your will, please contact Julia Brown: Julia.4.brown@kcl. ac.uk, (+44) 020 7848 2635.
Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where the Higgs boson was detected in 2012.
TRAILBLAZING A NEW DIMENSION IN MEDICINE
To achieve global impact in science and healthcare is remarkable at any age. To achieve it when you’re under 30 years old is astonishing. That’s why we are absolutely thrilled to see the work of one of our exciting trailblazers, Dr Antonia Pontiki, recognised in the Forbes 30 under 30 world rankings. The impact of her work in 3D-printed prosthetics and artificial organs is making a difference right now to patients and healthcare practitioners, and her public engagement and outreach is inspiring the next generation of science leaders and women breaking ground in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We wanted to find out more about this remarkable leader, her reflections on her career so far, and her ambitions for the future.
Printing a life-saving solution
As more people are living longer lives, but increasingly with life-limiting conditions, Dr Antonia Pontiki’s research is driven by an urgency to apply progress across health research and practice. It focuses not only on using technology available today, but pushes boundaries, harnessing the potential of surgical simulations and patient-specific prostheses created through 3D printing.
This life-changing and life-saving research includes 3D-printed prosthetic ribs that help rebuild chest walls after surgery, as well as artificial organs that can be used by medical students to practise on without requiring cadavers. Dr Pontiki is continuing to search for new ways to make more impact for more people through her research, including the use of different materials that would be more permanent and can be used for prostheses after trauma (so for young people as well) and not only lung cancer patients.
Dr Pontiki told us: ‘I am very grateful to be able to share my passion for improving people’s lives and the opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Making the Forbes Under 30 in Healthcare list is a great honour and a validation for all the hard work and unwavering support of my family and mentors, and their belief that with determination you can achieve your dreams.’
A natural science communicator
Not only is Dr Pontiki forging new paths in her chosen field of academic study and teaching, she is also building a formidable reputation as a passionate voice and advocate for science communications and female leadership. In February 2023, she was a guest on flagship BBC science programme Click. In October, she was invited to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day with the Royal Institution, presenting a lecture on the applied impact of 3D printing, and how it could transform both medical practice and medical education. Most recently, Dr Pontiki became part of our King’s MedTech Accelerator, a brand new initiative for King’s researchers and staff to develop research innovations into practical healthcare ventures. Through collaboration with the team from the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering, staff from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, investors, founders, industry partners and colleagues across King’s, the accelerator will empower King’s to increase impact through increasing access to and championing entrepreneurship and enterprise.
3D printing
a chest wall could reduce the cost from around
£10,000 per unit to £40.6
Taking part in a three-day bootcamp to kick off MedTech, Dr Pontiki said: ‘It’s been great to hear the views, experiences and dreams of such a large variety of people about their ventures. We’ve got participants at different levels of their careers, from PhD students and engineers all the way to consultant cardiologists at the NHS, but we’re all here asking the same questions and learning the same things. At the end of the day, what matters most is that the bootcamp is creating a community of future entrepreneurs who are at the same stage of their journeys. We may all have different backgrounds but we all have the same aims.’
It’s a continuing honour to have Dr Pontiki as part of our King’s community. Her TEDxAthens talk in October 2024 again highlighted her power as a science communicator. Alongside her research and teaching, she continues to inspire excellence as we strive to increase the positive impact we make, right now.
40 million people around the world need a prosthetic or orthotic.7
If you’re interested in finding out more about the King’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
Digital technologies are constantly presenting new opportunities and challenges in all aspects of our lives. Digital law provides a lens through which we can study the implications of these and work across academic disciplines to address the most pressing questions. With the appointment of Professor Sylvie Delacroix as our inaugural Jeff Price Chair in Digital Law – established thanks to the incredible generosity of King’s alumnus Michael Abbott (Law, 1990) – we can start to shape the future of legal practice for an increasingly digital world.
Michael Abbott first met Jeff Price as a prospective student, when Jeff was Associate Head for Admissions, Student Affairs and Staff Development in the School of Law. Despite Michael not having the requisite grades, Jeff saw the potential in Michael. This example of understanding and supporting the person, rather than having a fixed mindset, epitomises our values at King’s, as we strive to always put our students first.
Looking back on his experience at university, Michael reflected ‘King’s unlocked my potential, helping me develop the skills to build my career. Recognising Jeff Price in this way is important to me – the positive impact of an inspiring teacher and mentor lasts a lifetime.’
The Jeff Price Chair has been instrumental in launching the Centre for Data Futures, offering us an exciting opportunity to consider how topdown regulation and bottom-up empowerment structures can make the ongoing AI revolution socially sustainable.
Prior to her work with King’s, Professor Delacroix was Associate Professor in Legal Theory and Ethics at University College London before becoming Professor in Law and Ethics at the University of Birmingham, alongside working as a Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. We talked to her about her priorities and plans.
Professor Sylvie Delacroix
Can you tell us about your priorities as our first Chair in Digital Law?
AI algorithms are only as good as the data they are trained on. If the data is biased, AI systems can perpetuate and even exacerbate existing biases in the legal system. Ensuring fairness and impartiality in AI decision-making is a critical challenge. My priority will be to spearhead discussions around the way algorithmic systems influence legal and social practices. I am committed to nurturing a community of grassroots organisations, public servants and scholars to collaborate on building infrastructure that responsively empowers citizens.
Your previous work and research concentrated on the intersection between law and ethics. Will this continue to be a focus for you at King’s?
‘King’s unlocked my potential, helping me develop the skills to build my career. Recognising Jeff Price in this way is important to me – the positive impact of an inspiring teacher and mentor lasts a lifetime.’
Michael Abbott
One of the key questions we need to ask is how can we make this ongoing AI revolution socially sustainable? This requires an interdisciplinary approach and I want to work with a wide variety of people from the Law School and across King’s. For example, we are working with King’s Medical School, exploring how GPs could contribute to the way uncertainty is communicated by large language models. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, we can address pressing challenges such as digital exclusion and the development of trustworthy, responsible AI.
You are going to be leading the new Centre for Data Futures. Can you tell us your plans for it?
The Centre will design participatory infrastructure and add value and context to data. This starts at data generation, all the way to user interfaces. If we can successfully leverage funding, I want to create a Data Empowerment Clinic within the Centre, to enable peer learning, where students from across King’s can learn through data empowerment projects. I want to develop resources for people and organisations around the world that would support their relationship with their own data.
74% of UK consumers
hold a greater level of distrust towards social media giants.8
Do you see an opportunity for the Centre for Data Futures to educate and empower people in relation to new challenges concerning data?
Unlike previous industrial revolutions, the AI revolution is powered by a resource that largely comes from us – data. This is an opportunity to think creatively about building legal tools and the socio-legal institutions that will make the AI revolution socially sustainable in the long term. A lot of efforts so far have been focused on topdown regulation – for example, giving personal data rights to people – and that has been really important. But, if we want a participatory infrastructure to improve data governance, we need to introduce the concept of ‘bottom-up empowerment’.
What real-life impact do you want the Centre to have?
The Centre’s focus on participatory infrastructure is designed to get us to move beyond the focus on just AI safety and the fear of robots taking over. The AI revolution carries the risk of increasing the vulnerability of the most marginalised, leading to the potential erosion of democratic institutions. We must keep asking questions of the people who govern us. One of the main purposes of the Centre will be to say: ‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’
33% of global consumers have experienced a data breach.9
Equipping our students for the future
We’ve already seen how engaged our students are in digital law. In February 2024, we hosted our inaugural Generative AI Hackathon with students from The Dickson Poon School of Law and the Department of Informatics. Bringing students across both disciplines together to create AI solutions to real-world legal problems, with teams demonstrating how large language models can transform law, the hackathon highlighted the innovative spirit our students possess. With several other events covering AI, human skills in a digital world and how AI could improve justice, we’re again seeing King’s excellence play a leading role in making the future a better place.
Professor Dan Hunter, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, reflects: ‘The way we exploit, regulate and understand digital innovations in the context of the law is a critical area of legal study for King’s students and we are pleased to be able to expand our programmes thanks to this hugely generous donation.’
46%
of consumers
believe they cannot sufficiently protect their data, due to a lack of understanding of how companies use their data.10
If you’re interested in finding out more about our Centre for Data Futures, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
Our executive deans ensure each faculty, school, department and team at King’s keeps impact, collaboration and our mission to make the world a better place at the heart of everything we do. We asked them to reflect on a year at King’s and share some of their highlights.
Professor Stephen Bach
Executive Dean, King’s Business School
Executive Dean Professor Stephen Bach discusses King’s Business School, and the life-changing impact of its research and education initiatives.
In the last year, King’s Business School has continued its commitment to sustainable and social responsibility through the Centre for Sustainable Business. Our work made community renewable energy projects more representative of their communities, and helped establish a community-run Energy Co-Op and solar installation programme in a London borough. Our researchers developed an app to spot when investment funds are ‘greenwashing’ and used research on discrimination in the recruitment process to inform a project with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre that supports displaced people getting into work.
For the Business School, philanthropy is critical to King’s ambition to make the world a better place. For example, through philanthropic support for a research centre focused on central banking, we have been able to expand from one or two individuals working in this area, to its becoming a major focus of expertise and engagement with central bank policy-makers. Philanthropy enables us to hire excellent individuals focused on crucial areas without being directly dependent on student numbers to drive further ambition. For example, we are planning to use the Churchill Fund, established as the result of a generous philanthropic gift, to develop an international alumni council and our first alumni chapters in London, Mumbai and Shanghai, engaging our alumni community in those cites as ambassadors for the Business School and its work.
Being multidisciplinary and working with a range of partners enables us to address major challenges and questions. For example, we are researching the factors that facilitate UK–India
trade through the King’s India Institute and partners in India. This will lead to a training module for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, which, post-Brexit, is placing renewed emphasis on our ties with India. We are also working with the King’s Department of Informatics on the UK research hub for Trustworthy Autonomous Systems, developing best practice for the design, regulation and operation of socially beneficial AI systems. And we’re dedicated to elevating the impact of other faculties through practical support and training – for example, the Business School’s Entrepreneurship Institute is delivering the entrepreneurial skills element of the sixmonth King’s MedTech Accelerator programme that will transform King’s research innovations into viable healthcare ventures.
‘In the last year, King’s Business School has continued its commitment to sustainable and social responsibility through the Centre for Sustainable Business. Our work made community renewable energy projects more representative of their communities, and helped establish a community-run Energy Co-Op and solar installation programme in a London borough.’
If you’re interested in finding out more about the work of any of our nine faculties at King’s, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
Professor Rachel Bearon
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (NMES), Professor Rachel Bearon talks to us about combining the power of technology, research and philanthropy to drive global progress.
Our science and engineering is geared to make the world a better place. For example, our world-leading Net Zero Centre is driving forward research that will help decarbonise our economy and society in diverse ways, from using biochemistry to tackle plastic waste and converting food waste to energy to driving green telecommunications through neuromorphic computing.
Our researchers and educators are ensuring technology is working for good. Researchers at NMES play a leading role in the public understanding of AI and robotics, and this year we hosted another successful Festival of Artificial Intelligence, installed a soft robotics Glowbot Garden on the Strand in London, and led training and research networks in trusted autonomous systems and responsible AI.
Much of our work is only possible through philanthropy. Our incredible supporters extend opportunities for people from underrepresented groups to experience science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, including support for the King’s Maths School and the King’s Factor. Philanthropy has given us new facilities, such as the state-of-the-art engineering labs under the historic Quad building. It can help us achieve new goals, from using quantum physics to drive improvements in health, security and materials development, to expanding our outreach and diversity impact – for example, through the first national girls’ robotics challenge.
We’re also using the power of interdisciplinary research and education, which underpins the ambitious new investment in science talent, research, education and infrastructure to accelerate growth, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation – for example, our work in the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Hub delivering vaccines to the developing world.
‘Our science and engineering is geared to make the world a better place. For example, our world-leading Net Zero Centre is driving forward research that will help decarbonise our economy and society in diverse ways, from using biochemistry to tackle plastic waste and converting food waste to energy to driving green telecommunications through neuromorphic computing.’
Professor Michael Escudier Executive Dean, Faculty of Dentistry,
Oral & Craniofacial Sciences
Professor Michel Escudier, Executive Dean, discusses the global impact of the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences’ world-leading research and education.
Our Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences is the largest dental faculty in Europe and hosts the only dental school in the UK to feature in the top 10 of the QS World University Rankings – we are currently fifth in the world.* Our research is rated first in the UK for quality, power and impact** and we educate around 20 per cent of the UK’s current oral health workforce.
From next-generation non-invasive detection for oral and brain cancer that speeds up diagnosis and reduces the burden on NHS services to conducting the first UK study delivering dental care interventions in care homes (FInCH), helping to upskill care home teams in improving mouth care to enhance residents’ quality of life, our work is groundbreaking. We are leading international initiatives to raise awareness of and address antimicrobial resistance, and have delivered new insights through the Human Gut Microbiome Atlas and the R-BIOME consortium into treatments for liver disease, type 2 diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s.
Our impact is continually strengthened by philanthropic support. Through the generosity of our donors, we are future-proofing the oral health workforce, driving innovations in patient care and tackling some of the world’s biggest health challenges. Without these dedicated supporters, the world couldn’t benefit from the significant advancements they power.
Impactful partnerships are at the heart of our Faculty. With the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine and external partners, we published pioneering reports identifying advancements in treating sarcoma and carcinoma, and a role for bacteria in ‘melting’ head and neck cancers. The
ROAR programme, with King’s Social Mobility & Widening Participation, inspires school-aged children in low-participation areas to discover careers in science, also empowering our dentistry undergraduates who lead this work. Everything we’ve achieved over the last 12 months has been aimed at creating a positive impact for the world – be it publishing new findings about the iron-coated teeth of Komodo dragons that could lead to new understanding of dinosaurs, which has captured public attention with worldwide coverage, or our simulationbased dentistry education and emphasis on cultural humanities that supports students, sets new standards for other dental institutions and, crucially, improves the dental health of our South London community. And we can’t wait to create even more impact in the future.
*QS World University Rankings 2024
**Research Excellence Framework 2021
‘Our impact is continually strengthened by philanthropic support. Through the generosity of our donors, we are future-proofing the oral health workforce, driving innovations in patient care and tackling some of the world’s biggest health challenges.’
Professor Irene Higginson Executive Dean, Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care
Holding leadership roles in the Faculty since 2018, Professor Irene Higginson stepped down as Executive Dean in September 2024.
Listed among the top 30 female scientists in the UK and in the top 1 per cent in the world in her field by citations, Professor Higginson shares the impact happening with the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care (NMPC), and how they are transforming health and care, so people can live better lives from beginning to end. From harnessing new technologies and advancing equity and social mobility to developing sustainable working practices, under Professor Higginson’s leadership, NMPC has been leading the way.
Right here at King’s and across the planet, our work makes an incredible individual and societal impact. In the UK, we’re bringing together health partners, NHS, social care, patients, the public, and industry partners to transform healthcare through digital innovation. To constantly promote equality, we’ve recently appointed a Professor of Health Services Research & Inequalities to lead research and education in inclusion health. And with the launch of the EMPOWER Dementia Network Plus, supporting those affected by dementia, we’re working hard to make sure everyone in the UK receives the best health and care possible throughout their lives.
But so much of our work wouldn’t be possible without the power of philanthropy. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we’ve been able to award crucial bursaries that nurture the next generation of healthcare workers. In the past year, hardship bursaries have enabled 311 nurses and midwives in training to continue their studies, while five undergraduate and five
postgraduate scholarships have opened doors for new students.
Internationally, we’ve been pioneering efforts across Africa to improve the safety and trustworthiness of remote healthcare consultations. And our commitment to sustainability saw us winning the Student Nursing Times Award for Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability along with a Gold rating in the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework.
We make the most impact when we work together. Combining multi- and interdisciplinary work with the power of philanthropy can lead to the most innovative improvements in healthcare. Our new initiative supporting caregivers brings together arts and humanities, business school, and engineering with NMPC teams in health services research and palliative care. The co-produced Better Health & Care Futures initiative will radically redesign interventions, treatments and care across global health and care challenges, improving home care, enhancing symptom management, reducing or reversing frailty, and offering better support to family members and carers. Our Impact Centre for Palliative an End-of-Life Care takes a strong leadership role, providing evidence and understanding of dying and bereavement and shaping policy and practice in world-class, cost-effective end-of-life care.
It’s been a packed year full of impact across the Faculty.
King’s wants to say thank you to Professor Higginson for everything she has accomplished and the impactful leadership she has given the Faculty. In addition to taking on a newly created position at the National Institute for Health and Care Research as Funding Committee Chair for their Health and Social Care Delivery Research programme, Professor Higginson will continue as Professor of Palliative Care & Policy at King’s, focusing on research and education to shape better health and care futures and palliative care.
Professor Matthew Hotopf Executive Dean, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
Professor Matthew Hotopf, Executive Dean, of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), talks to us about the impact of both his Faculty and the power of philanthropic support in driving progress.
Our work has a wide-reaching societal impact, particularly for the most vulnerable in society. We develop new treatments and interventions for mental illness and neurological disorders, and improvements to care. Our work improves lives every day, not just here in London but around the world, and often at scale. Our work with the NHS is closely aligned with King’s impact challenges, for example, helping ease pressure on local child and adolescent mental health services. We highlighted the discrimination and ethnic inequalities experienced by NHS staff during the pandemic, calling for urgent structural changes. Our Health Protection Research Unit in emergency preparedness and Response has supported government agencies through major health emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, major climate events and international humanitarian crises. We influenced reforms within the UK Mental Health Act, regularly provide evidence to parliamentary committees, and lead progress in many new therapies and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, including motor neurone disease and dementia.
Philanthropic support can have an influential multiplier effect for funding. For example, through donations from our philanthropic partners, we leveraged a significant grant from Research England to build a state-of-the-art research facility, the Pears Maudsley Centre. This work will break new ground in our understanding and treatment of young people’s mental health.
Taking a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach remains at the centre
of our Faculty’s progress – for example, with King’s College Hospital, and our relationship with South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust is truly unique. Many of our researchers work at SLaM both as researchers and clinicians, placing them within a diverse ‘living lab’ of almost two million people. This provides an opportunity to make an impact at scale, such as recent insights highlighting high levels of problematic mobile phone use are prevalent among young people with mental health conditions.
These partnerships are interwoven throughout our work. Through King’s Health Partners, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, we have produced cross-partnership initiatives, such as CogStack, a digital platform that uses natural language processing and electronic health records to support clinical decision-making and health research.
We use our expertise in research that’s co-produced with patients and the public to ensure a strong service-user voice. We have many cross-King’s initiatives with other faculties and knowledge-exchange institutes, including the Policy Institute and King’s Culture. Together with the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, we created the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, which is generating insight into how social transformation has contributed to rising mental health problems among young people.
Every day brings a new challenge for us to face. But, together with our colleagues, partners and supporters, we know we can continue to make a real and lasting difference.
‘We could not make the impact we do without philanthropic support. It allows us to tackle urgent needs and unlock potential for impact. We can fundraise for exactly what we see needs doing, rather than fitting into an existing funding call.’
Professor
Dan Hunter
Executive
Dean,
The Dickson Poon School of Law
Professor Dan Hunter, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, talks us through how the Faculty has been delivering positive impacts throughout society and across the world.
Over the last year, our School has showcased its excellence in solving some of today’s biggest challenges. In line with our ambition to achieve a thriving and sustainable planet, staff and students from the King’s Legal Clinic developed the Rights of Nature Toolkit, designed to help anyone working in legal and environmental advocacy to protect the ecological health of our rivers. The Legal Clinic has also highlighted problems with the Windrush Compensation Scheme, particularly where it fails to provide fair and accessible compensation to the victims of the Windrush scandal. And Professor Rosamund Scott from our Centre of Medical Law & Ethics was instrumental in developing the first UK Code of Practice for stem cell-based embryo models in research.
Across the School, philanthropy plays a crucial role in enabling us to tackle some of the most pressing legal and societal questions of today. Much of the excellent work produced by our centres and institutes has been facilitated by generous philanthropic donations. These contributions not only support our research and advocacy efforts but also fund bursaries and scholarships, ensuring that students from all walks of life can pursue their studies with us.
King’s can deliver even more value through our interdisciplinary approach – for example, our collaborative work and impactful research around AI and technology. This year, we hosted our inaugural Legal Generative AI Hackathon, enabling Law and Informatics students to use innovative disciplinary approaches and provide solutions to legal challenges using cutting-edge AI technology. And with the establishment of the Jeff Price Chair in Digital Law and the
Centre for Data Futures over the last year, we can shape the future of legal practice in this age of massive technological disruption.
The law has never been more important to a peaceful, resilient and equitable world. We continue to use our skills and expertise to make a significant impact across the most important areas to people and the planet.
‘Across the School, philanthropy plays a crucial role in enabling us to tackle some of the most pressing legal and societal questions of today. Much of the excellent work produced by our centres and institutes has been facilitated by generous philanthropic donations.’
Professor Linda McKie Executive Dean, Faculty of
Social Science & Public Policy
Professor Linda McKie, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, discusses the power of philanthropy and collaboration to elevate impact throughout King’s and for the wider world.
Our Faculty places societal impact at the core of its mission, studying pressing global challenges and proposing solutions. Through long-lasting collaborations and partnerships with those directly affected and those in positions to influence policies and practice, our research has brought about change in a number of important arenas. Some notable recent examples include strengthening evidence-based climate legislation in the UK Parliament; assisting parents in our local community to reduce inequalities of access to higher education; and researching and experimenting with new ways to leverage artbased practices in developing intercommunal conflict resolution and remembrance.
Philanthropic funding is crucial in driving our Faculty’s priorities. Donations empower us to achieve greater societal impact by providing flexible and long-term support. Philanthropic funding enables researchers to pursue innovative projects and supports broader initiatives such as community outreach, public engagement, infrastructure development and early-career researchers. For example, the Centre for the Study of Governance & Society has become, thanks to philanthropic support, a leading centre for research on governance dilemmas around the world.
Adopting a multidisciplinary approach and collaborating across King’s has amplified our Faculty’s impact. College-wide networks of researchers are instrumental in crafting solutions that tackle complex challenges across multiple sectors and understand multiple perspectives and needs. This interdisciplinary ethos is exemplified in the work within the King’s Climate Research Hub, King’s Water Centre and the Geocomputation and Data Science Research Hub, which have been pivotal in influencing environmental and development decisionmaking globally.
‘Philanthropic funding is crucial in driving our Faculty’s priorities. Donations empower us to achieve greater societal impact by providing flexible and long-term support. Philanthropic funding enables researchers to pursue innovative projects and supports broader initiatives such as community outreach, public engagement, infrastructure development and early career researchers.’
Professor Ajay Shah
Executive Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine
Professor Ajay Shah, Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Life Sciences & Medicine, highlights how the impact of his Faculty’s work, powered by philanthropy, is a leading force in positive health outcomes.
At the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, we’re delivering societal impact locally, nationally and across the globe. Our biomedical research is driving advancements in understanding from before birth, through childhood and adulthood, to old age: from novel diagnostic tools and prevention strategies for major conditions including diabetes, pregnancy complications and age-related disability to the development of advanced therapies for cancer, cardiovascular disease and asthma.
Philanthropic funding enables researchers in the Faculty to take on bigger challenges and deliver impact much faster. We can focus our work on delivering real-world benefits from the outset, helping to integrate different groups across King’s to focus on shared strategic priorities and leverage more resources. Philanthropic support is essential to the pipeline of future talent in priority areas, and to supporting initiatives to widen access to opportunities in the Faculty, including our extended medical degree programme – the UK’s flagship broadening access-to-medicine programme. Our new branch campus at the University of Portsmouth will provide a flow of medics in a part of the UK that has a scarcity of doctors, particularly GPs, and higher- thanaverage levels of social deprivation. Our partnership work makes our impact stronger. Close relationships with NHS trusts through King’s Health Partners builds relationships with local populations in South East London. And our international outlook drives global impact, particularly across many African nations. For example, the LEAP-Trio
study could prevent more than 100,000 new cases of peanut allergy every year worldwide. Self-testing kits for human papillomavirus could enable more than one million extra women to participate in life-saving cervical cancer screening over the next three years. And we’re harnessing the power of AI to accurately identify risk in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and help prevent an estimated 46,000 maternal deaths around the world, predominantly in lowand middle-income countries.
But underpinning everything is a strong multidisciplinary approach. It’s key to the Faculty’s success, with hardly any major project not involving complementary scientists and others from diverse disciplines – for example our Centres of Excellence, including the British Heart Foundation Centre, Centre for Ageing Resilience, Centre of Research Excellence in Advanced Cardiovascular Therapies, and EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training.
‘Philanthropic support is essential to the pipeline of future talent in priority areas, and to supporting initiatives to widen access to opportunities in the Faculty, including our extended medical degree programme –the UK’s flagship broadening access-tomedicine programme.’
Professor Marion Thain
Executive
Dean,
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Executive Dean Marion Thain discusses the ambitious range of activities happening within the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
Our Faculty of Arts & Humanities is delivering societal impact on so many levels. From our Environmental Humanities network that puts human action and cultural understanding at the heart of our response to the most pressing planetary challenges, to leading work in health humanities with the King’s medical faculties, ensuring our strengths in health narratives, health ethics and health and the arts continue to change the way we think about medicine.
Our Global Cultures Institute nurtures crossdisciplinary work around equity, social mobility and peace and justice. It means King’s can help people connect across boundaries of culture, nationality and personal identity, making sure we don’t retreat into our own echo chambers.
The Faculty leads the university-wide flagship Digital Futures Institute, pioneering new solutions and perspectives for the challenges of our digital age. We’re looking beyond purely technical problems to human and social implications that require much broader, multidisciplinary ways of knowing and responding.
These initiatives enable the Faculty, and King’s as a whole, to reach much broader and more varied audiences. Our work is elevated through the power of philanthropy – for example, our new Success for Digital Futures programme for Year 10 school pupils has, through the kind support of an alumnus, made it possible for us to explore changing the way a whole generation thinks about technology and its role and potential within society.
Marion left King’s at the end of December 2024, after over six years in the role. Under her leadership, the Faculty has continued the King’s tradition of being a leader in the field, redefining the subject area for the UK and beyond. We wish Marion the very best for her next endeavours and want to celebrate the impact she has had.
‘The Faculty leads the university-wide flagship Digital Futures Institute, pioneering new solutions and perspectives for the challenges of our digital age. We’re looking beyond purely technical problems to human and social implications that require much broader, multidisciplinary ways of knowing and responding.’
Peace and justice in a turbulent world
Violence, conflict, persecution, injustice and democratic deficits continue to affect millions of people. With a staggering 1 in 73 people displaced, according to the UN Refugee Agency, the impact of forced migration is felt locally and globally. People are displaced for longer periods than ever before, with most for over a decade. The impact of forced migration, exacerbated by the climate crisis, will have enduring repercussions that echo through generations.
At King’s, we are committed to improving the lives of those affected by these injustices and addressing the forces that prevent international peace and security.
We understand that addressing these challenges requires examining the issue in its entirety. Our unparalleled research power makes us a global hub for subject innovation, partnerships and interdisciplinary research in the security field and beyond. Crucially, we recognise that such an enormous, pressing and global challenge cannot be solved by a single organisation, or a single country. To truly have impact, we must nurture global solution-building, including pooling knowledge and resources from multiple countries and partners. At King’s, we’re committed to challenging ourselves to understand how the world is transforming and what our meaningful contribution might continue to be.
ENSURING SECURITY, FROM SEABED TO OUTER SPACE
For most, our relationship with, understanding of and consideration for the role of the seas and oceans that surround us is limited. However, these bodies of water cover the majority of our planet and contain the fundamental systems that enable our civilisations to connect and exist. From accessing the internet to fuelling our homes, powering businesses to buying groceries, connecting cultures and winning peace. Seas’ fundamental strategic importance is now being viewed through a stellar lens, thanks to brand new work happening at King’s School of Security Studies, led by Dr James W E Smith, Laughton-Corbett visiting Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies, as he drives forward new understanding of how maritime and naval strategies are central to national defence strategy but also shape the role of space in our national defence.
Learning strategies from the seas
Almost all our day-to-day lives rely on a chain of processes that simply couldn’t happen without the communication, exploration, trade and human engagement that happen within and upon our seas. And, as space becomes more accessible for military forces, commercial enterprises and private citizens, the similarity between the two environments – and our relationship with them – becomes clearer and more urgent.
Using maritime strategy to advance understanding of the role of space in national defence is now the focus of a project led by Dr James W E Smith and supported by the Laughton Unit in the School of Security Studies.
In 2022, the UK Government committed to investing £1.4 billion as part of the first Defence Space Strategy.
Dr Smith was awarded his PhD from the Department of War Studies at King’s in 2021, and through continued support from King’s and the British Academy is building new research. His aim now is to develop a greater understanding of the final frontier and how space will increasingly influence events and defence operations on earth, evidence of which we see already – for example, in the vital role space is playing in the war in Ukraine, with both sides relying heavily on their space-based capabilities for military advantage.
Dr Smith told us: ‘The seas have always been strategically important but increasingly so is space, both with huge economic impact. Both are hostile environments, full of technological and logistical challenges, yet both domains have persistently been overlooked in terms of public understanding and policy priority, leaving us with a lack of comprehensive strategy and long-term commercial, diplomatic or military planning.’
A collaboration of diversity
The project seeks to leverage lessons and tools derived from human experience within maritime planning and operations to advance understandings of the role of space in defence and security – in particular, the interactions between human exploration, science, commerce, law, communications and military operations – to help form a strategy that reflects national ways of ‘war and peace’.
Professor Sir Bashir M Al-Hashimi, our Vice President (Research & Innovation), said: ‘It’s vital we support our early-career researchers to be able to pursue their studies with the resources and guidance unique to King’s. With our backing, researchers such as Dr Smith can feel confident in their insight and understanding having the support it needs to make a significant impact in national and international policy development.’
Dr Smith often brings together a diverse range of stakeholders, including civilian and military naval and space organisations, as well as partners from the fields of science, law, technology and the environment. Through the research, he hopes to contribute to advance national strategy through maritime strategy along with an understanding of the role of space in defence and its interface with geostrategy, geopolitics and civilian activity – something to which he argues the oceans have been central throughout history (and so they remain).
‘We are going through a maritime renaissance, not solely because of the increased military tension and commercial competition at sea and in space but because maritime strategy tells us to think deeply and carefully about the intersection of diplomacy, commercial interest, and military and civilian activity, and how it is fundamental to our daily lives as well as nations on so many levels. Being mindful of this is vital to combat the ever-present issue of strategic, policy and public blindness to the sea and to space.’
If you’re interested in finding out more about King’s Department of War Studies, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
PRESERVING IDENTITY AND HONOURING THE PAST
No matter who we are or where we call home, we live with global fragility. According to recent data from the United Nations, there are now more armed conflicts around the world than at any time since the end of the Second World War. At a time when research has found approximately one billion people may be directly impacted on by conflict, the threat to an individual’s identity is grave. The need to preserve and restore that identity, alongside cultural heritage, has never been more urgent. New work carried out by our Faculty of Arts & Humanities brings our world-leading expertise to bear with far-reaching impacts for people – and nations – whose identity could so easily be lost and forgotten in the throes of violent conflict.
Helping people know themselves
There are few more fundamental aspects to life than the identity with which we define ourselves. To the outside world and within a sense of self, it’s our identity as people, communities, societies and states that give shape and meaning to our existence, both current and historic. Without an identity, the actual fades into the forgotten. The work within the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at King’s is ensuring this doesn’t happen.
The latest research of Professor Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature, focuses on the Greek babies, infants and children forcibly adopted after the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) and through the 1960s. By the late 1940s, some 375,000 Greek children had lost a parent, and around 4,000 of them were subjected to adoption abroad, often involving deception and a disregard for the rights of the mother or child.
Professor Van Steen contributed a historical introduction to a new book that was written and edited by the Greek adoptees themselves: Voices of the Lost Children of Greece. In October 2024, Gonda completed a play in the form of testimony theatre, called For Three Refrigerators and a Washing Machine. Performed at King’s Greenwood Theatre in a bold production by Kyriaki Mitsou, which was well-received by audiences. The play and Professor Van Steen’s research provide a platform for those nowadult children adopted to the USA and the Netherlands and offer an exploration of her work to reunite post-civil-war forced adoptees with their families.
Voices of the Lost Children of Greece and the upcoming stage production are filled with stories that define the experience of international adoption and the lifelong impact it has, which in so many cases is never properly measured or acknowledged.
Professor Van Steen’s work has been directly responsible for reuniting families, with children and parents contacting her to help find their biological roots – for example, reconnecting after 65 years a biological mother with her adult daughter who was taken from her as a one-yearold baby.
And now, thanks to the generosity of the Fetal Medicine Foundation, Professor Van Steen has received the additional funding needed to complete an accompanying documentary, The Greek Connection. The documentary, which was screened in Greece in May 2024, was directed by Ronit Kertsner who sadly passed away before it was completed. However, it’s our hope and belief that this moving film can change even more lives and potentially reunite more lost families.
A career of protecting and promoting heritage
Introducing Dr Hiba Alkhalaf, Postdoctorate Research Associate at King’s Department of Classics. Made possible by the generous funding of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas Foundation, Dr Alkhalaf’s work is deeply committed to safeguarding cultural heritage in conflict zones, with a recent focus on the Managing Libyan Cultural Heritage Project (MaliCH). Culminating in over four years of multidisciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration, the project has been designed to create lasting impact in the field of heritage management. Dr Alkhalaf has been working with local partners on some of the most sensitive and significant markers of Libyan cultural identity, delivering training in heritage protection, emergency stabilisation, developing tools for local community engagement and management planning for three Libyan World Heritage Sites: the Old Town of Ghadamès,
Preserving identity and honouring the past
the Archaeological Site of Leptis Magna and the Archaeological Site of Sabratha. These sites have been listed on UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list since 2016 due to the ongoing conflict in the country.
‘After years of the global pandemic and travel restrictions, face-to-face meetings presented a unique opportunity to deliberate on challenges confronting the management of heritage sites, including the climate crisis and the direct and indirect impacts of conflict, as well as potential approaches to tackle these issues.’
Today, it’s estimated one billion people may be directly impacted on by conflict around the world.11
Dr Alkhalaf’s work has been recognised at the highest levels, with presentations to the British Embassy in Tripoli, and meetings with the British Council and UK ambassadors. Her ongoing impact on efforts to preserve cultural heritage and identity would not be possible without incredible and continual support from the Libyan Department of Antiquities and collaboration with the Ghadames City Promotion and Development Authority.
Based on her interests and experience, Dr Alkhalaf actively engages in advancing discussions in the field of heritage and conflict on a global level. For instance, she co-organised a seminar entitled, Interpretation and Presentation of Contested Heritage: Toward Truth and Peace-building, which was held at King’s in June 2024. This event was a collaborative effort with Seoul National University’s Institute of International Studies, ICOMOS International Committee on Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites, OurWorldHeritage Foundation, and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. This seminar curated a distinguished panel of global experts to share best practices in heritage interpretation and
presentation, particularly focusing on addressing human rights issues during times of war and conflict.
Dr Alkhalaf also joined the Undisciplined Spaces programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Account granted to King’s Faculty of Arts & Humanities. As part of this programme, she developed the project Diasporic Syrian Heritage in London: From Academia to Community Engagement. Her research interests in heritage and identity prompted an exploration
Heritage sites can create powerful places where information is presented so it shows the full history of a contested place.12
of the elements that shape the identity of British citizens of Syrian descent within the diasporic community in London. This enquiry raises critical questions regarding the selection of these identity/cultural heritage elements and their resonance with the ongoing conflict in Syria since 2011. The project aimed to transcend theoretical boundaries by actively engaging in co-sharing and co-producing knowledge in collaboration with the community.
The project received the Grand Award for the ICCROM-Sharjah Award for Good Practices in the Preservation and Protection of Cultural Heritage in the Arab Region.
ADVOCATING FOR WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP ACROSS THE GLOBE
Within the last 12 months, elections have taken place in countries home to almost half of the world’s population. One outcome of this huge demonstration of democracy could be to push forward the case for more women leaders and the hugely positive benefit this could have for gender equality. It’s clearly been front of mind in the work of the King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL), as it delivered another 12 months of incisive research, insight and commentary into the state of progress towards more women in leadership roles across the world and across sectors.
The role of king’s global institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL) is becoming increasingly urgent, with recent reports showing an increase from 100 to 136 years until the global economic gender gap is closed, and research finding nearly half of Britons think women’s equality has gone far enough. The work of the Institute, and ensuring sustainable investment through the philanthropy that powers it, are increasingly pressing concerns.
Supporting individuals to achieve their ambitions is a core principle and central tenet of our university. The impact delivered by GIWL has always been fully focused on how it can make that ambition a reality. Since its inception, the Institute’s mission has been to provide research, practice, advocacy and engagement that breaks down barriers, while bringing together those who can advance the cause of access to leadership, regardless of gender.
Chaired by the Honourable Julia Gillard AC, the only woman to have served as prime minister of Australia, GIWL has developed impactful findings, led collaborative activities, and increased attention across areas critical to achieving fair and equal access to leadership for women of all backgrounds. From an accessible podcast to practical workplace training, from research into the role of gender in voting to showcasing women leaders in digital art, the Institute is a beacon of positive progress.
Over the last 12 months, there has been much to keep us busy, and much to celebrate. Last year saw the launch of our Changemakers Programme, a new initiative funded entirely through philanthropy. The Firebird Foundation became the inaugural supporter for the programme’s pilot year, and we’re proud to share that Domtila Chesang is our first ever funded GIWL Changemaker.
The programme brings together advocates and activists dedicated to advancing gender equality and is designed to deliver increased impact by providing tailored support for research projects tied to their work or local communities. This on-the-ground, practical approach focuses on the end-beneficiaries and strengthens the bridge between academic research and realworld impact. It gives more power to grassroots movements embedded in communities, who
have a unique ability to bring about sustainable societal change.
A truly collaborative programme, Changemakers gives access to research support, access to GIWL’s professional networks (including global leaders in the fields of academia, politics and business) and supports the building of an Impact Plan to communicate and disseminate research, raise awareness and help to translate research into action.
Activist and advocate Domtila is from West Pokot, Kenya. Her work focuses on combating violence against women and girls. In collaboration with The Five Foundation and funded by Firebird Foundation, her project focuses on researching the persistence of female genital mutilation within the Pokot community, despite efforts to eradicate this physically and psychologically harmful practice.
£5 million – the size of the Horizon Europe Guarantee ERC Synergy Grant awarded to Professor Rosie Campbell to investigate the quality of women’s political representation.
Through an in-depth exploration of the cultural beliefs and social dynamics that sustain FGM within the Pokot community, Domtila’s work examines reasons behind the continued practice of FGM, and finding effective strategies that engage with local stakeholders and raise awareness and understanding at the grassroots level. By generating data-driven insights that will help inform targeted interventions, Domtila’s work is having a much wider impact, as it contributes to the broader mission of advancing gender equality.
Around half (48%) the public think it’s harder to be a woman than a man today, while one in seven (14%) say the reverse.13
The success of GIWL is dependent on the philanthropic support we receive. It is thanks to the generosity of our funders that we can invest in developing better futures for more women around the world. Because of this support, we are able to deliver rigorous academic research, and provide insights that influence and embolden policymakers, practitioners and campaigners to create real change.
Olivia Hall, Founder of the Firebird Foundation, reflects: ‘We are honoured to have been the inaugural supporter of the GIWL Changemakers programme during its pilot year. Our confidence in the efficacy of Domtila’s work, combined with the philanthropic support we provided, will provide a platform for future funding to ensure the initiative’s continued growth and success. It is a source of great joy that Domtila and the Firebird Foundation will become founding members of a significant group of advocates and activists. As new changemakers join the cohort, our collective efforts will accelerate significant advancements in gender equality.’
Philanthropy enables us to leverage additional financial support and provide the evidence to drive social change. From supporting one of our projects to break down systemic barriers in leadership, funding an early-career researcher to look at how gender intersects with race, or working with grassroots organisations to end FGM in their local communities, the work of the Institute is dependent on philanthropic generosity to accelerate progress.
As we look ahead to the next 12 months, the scale of the challenge can, at times, be a daunting proposition, but the collaborative impact that GIWL delivers means each challenge is another chance to see a better, more equal future for all.
About GIWL
GIWL works towards a world in which being a woman is not a barrier to becoming a leader in any field – from the grassroots to the global. GIWL uses the expertise, experience and influence of its people and partners to support and deliver stronger research, broader collaboration and external engagement, and evidence-based training and teaching Our global network of accomplished partners is focused on improving gender equality and women’s leadership around the world.
GIWL could not have achieved this substantial success – and growing worldwide impact –without the support of the GIWL Founding Circle. GIWL’s Founding Circle brings together individuals, foundations and companies who are our champions and key philanthropic supporters, committed to gender equality. They all share an ethos that real change will come about through collective action.
Yulia Rud’ko (Law with Translational Legal Studies, 2014), GIWL Founding Circle Member and King’s alumna, explains: ‘I am delighted to be supporting the crucial work of GIWL. Globally, we still have a long way to go to achieve gender equality, and it’s a privilege to support King’s GIWL, who are committed to this goal. As an alumna, I also appreciate how becoming a King’s GIWL Founding Circle Member has helped me maintain my connection to King’s.’
Men are around twice as likely as women to say housework and caring for family members are things that apply to both genders equally, despite evidence showing that in reality women do significantly more of both on average.14
If you’re interested in finding out more about the King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
A perpetual learner, King’s alumna Her Excellency Toyin Ojora Saraki (LLM, 1987) won our 2024 Changemaker Award in recognition of her pioneering work in global health. Embracing the ethos of our mission to continue to make a positive impact beyond King’s, Toyin has advocated for over two decades on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. She is committed to ending gender-based discrimination and violence, and improving education, socioeconomic empowerment and community livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Toyin’s journey into healthcare began in her native Nigeria. Preparing to give birth to twins, and in one of Nigeria’s best hospitals, Toyin experienced serious birth complications, losing one child and battling to keep her other baby and herself alive. While in hospital, she was able to support a man who came in with a very premature baby who couldn’t afford treatment himself. It was then that Toyin decided she wanted to give back by helping people who didn’t have the resources.
Since that moment, Toyin’s story has been one of global philanthropic impact. Co-creating the Lifestream Charity in 1994, which secured life-saving surgery for children with heart defects, Toyin’s impact is aweinspiring. She is the Founder-President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, helping ensure safe births and reduce preventable deaths for pregnant people.
But that’s just the beginning. She is the inaugural and Emeritus Global Goodwill Ambassador for the International Confederation of Midwives and special adviser and member of the Independent Advisory Group of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Regional Office for Africa. She was named by Devex as Universal Health Coverage Global Champion, is the United Nations Population Fund Nigeria Family Planning Champion, the Save the Children Newborn Health Champion for Nigeria and is a Global Champion for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood.
She was also appointed the inaugural WHO Foundation Ambassador for Global Health in 2022, and currently sits on the Board of Trustees for Seed Global Health, the Africa REACH Leadership Council, the Concordia Leadership Council and the AstraZeneca Global Breast Cancer Care Council, and
on the Global Advisory Board of the World Humanitarian Forum.
Toyin is continuously using her knowledge to make the world a better place and saving lives, with over a million pregnant women reached, and never a mother or child lost, through the flagship programming of her foundation, Mamacare360. She is inspiring fellow alumni to follow in her health and wellbeing footsteps.
As an acclaimed philanthropist, her impact is directed towards helping the world reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This work goes alongside her foundation’s frontline programming across Nigeria, tackling priority issues within the country, including gender equity, health and nutrition, and water, sanitation and hygiene.
This incredible delivery of impact stems from a sense of responsibility that was instilled in Toyin during her time at King’s. King’s, she feels, has empowered her to user her education to make a meaningful difference for society with an international perspective. Attaining an LLM in International Economic Law, our mission has aligned with her own guiding force: to drive positive and sustainable change in society.
We can’t think of a more deserving recipient of the King’s Changemaker Award and someone who truly encapsulates the impact that can be made through a King’s education: ‘I am humbled to receive the King’s Changemaker Award, as this recognition highlights the power of using knowledge with purpose. Let us continue to harness the power of education and use our wisdom for the greater good!’
Whole-life health for mind and body
Brain development. Advanced cancer therapies. Heart regeneration. End-of-life care. From rapidly expanding populations and people living longer lives with poorer health to widening health inequities and the insecurity of public health funding, at King’s, brilliant thinkers are tackling society’s greatest challenges. For almost 200 years, we’ve pioneered research discoveries across major fields of health and care. We’ve educated and trained generations of passionate doctors, nurses, psychologists, dentists, physiotherapists, pharmacists and scientists, preparing them for a future where healthcare is ever-more holistic, personalised and data-driven.
Now, as Europe’s largest provider of health education and training, we race towards a future that was unimaginable even 50 years ago. Robot-assisted surgery. Digital mental health-care. AI-assisted dentistry. Quantum-powered drug discovery. And, while we are driven by the inequalities we see on our doorstep – a population among the most ethnically, socially and economically diverse on the planet –it’s this very diversity that allows us to drive global impact. It allows us to develop solutions that serve people of all backgrounds, and all characteristics, all over the world.
ADVANCED THERAPIES: THE NEXT FRONTIER OF MEDICINE
Despite advances in modern medicine over the last century, there are still life-threatening and life-limiting diseases and conditions for which we have no cures or effective treatments – neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, blindness and vision loss, diabetes, liver disease, organ rejection and many cancers, to name but a few. With rapid population growth and ageing, the prevalence of these already widespread conditions is only growing. This is significantly impacting on the quality of life of those affected and increasing pressure on families, communities and health systems to provide additional care and support. However, through the fast-moving, interdisciplinary and relatively new field of advanced therapies, medicines based on genes, cells or tissues are emerging that are offering potential cures to patients with previously untreatable conditions.
At the forefront of medical progress
Advanced therapies – gene therapies, cell therapies and tissue-engineered products – are pushing medicine to its next revolutionary frontier. These cutting-edge medicines are tailormade to patients so they can target disease and illness right at their root or capture the human body’s innate ability to heal. As such, they have the potential to save and improve the lives of millions of people. Advanced therapies are being used, for instance, to regenerate the hearts of those damaged by heart attack, disease or trauma; to enable children born deaf to hear for the first time and bring back sight in patients with degenerative eye disorders; to harness the body’s immune response to eliminate cancers in every corner of the body; and to prevent rejection or restore the function of vital organs, including the kidneys, liver and pancreas, so patients are not bound to their beds, insulin or dialysis machines.
As a bastion of medical progress, King’s recognises the urgency to accelerate the discovery of curative treatments to transform the outcomes of patients with chronic and intractable conditions. And our researchers are working to bring advanced therapies all the way from the laboratory bench right to patients’ bedsides in health systems globally.
King’s is one of the top centres worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health education and medical technologies.
Regenerating the human heart
Mauro Giacca, Professor of Cardiovascular Sciences and Head of the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences at King’s, is among those leading the way. Professor Giacca has shifted paradigms in our understanding of cardiac regeneration. At the absolute forefront of the field, he is most renowned for his work to develop viral vectors for cardiovascular applications and novel biologics for cardiac repair and regeneration in patients suffering from heart attack and heart failure. Currently, Professor Giacca is exploring the concept that heart tissue can be grown by stimulating the proliferation of the cells that have survived heart attack.
Heart tissue regeneration after heart attack or other injury has long been considered the holy grail of cardiovascular research. When the heart is damaged it can’t heal itself. This is because heart cells divide to form heart muscle during embryonic and foetal development phases before entering a terminal state where they no longer divide, thus losing their regenerative power. With the groundbreaking work of Professor Giacca and others, regenerating the heart is within our reach. And through the power of philanthropy, targeted investment in game-changing research has the potential to reshape the futures of patients with heart failure or other untreatable conditions, for the better, sooner.
We have extensive research, manufacturing and clinical trials infrastructure and facilities for advanced therapies embedded in Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts in London.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the pioneering research taking place at King’s in advanced therapies, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
Professor Mauro Giacca
MAKING DEMENTIA RESEARCH AND SUPPORT PERSONAL
At King’s, we strive to achieve the maximum impact through our work. Work that makes a difference, year after year, providing positive change to the lives of people locally, nationally and globally. By applying our research in practical applications and through collaboration with those who are most affected, we’re able to make the world a better place, not just for one moment in time, but for lifetimes. In the field of dementia, this is the kind of impact Dr Clare Ellis-Smith is delivering, day after day.
Tackling one of the biggest health issues we face today
Dr Clare Ellis-Smith
Dementia affects every person living with it in different ways. But if we’re to provide the best support for the individual, we need to put them at the centre of our work.
A ‘person-centred’ approach ensures their (or a proxy’s) voice is clearly heard in their care planning, and can lead to improved outcomes. In 2016, when Dr Clare Ellis-Smith conducted a review of people living with dementia in care homes, she discovered there was no personcentred outcome measure to support the assessment of the needs of people with dementia. There was a clear gap that needed to be filled, and so Dr Ellis-Smith developed the Integrated Palliative Care Outcome Scale for Dementia (IPOS-Dem).
As an outcome measure, IPOS-Dem brings together information on symptoms and concerns that people living with dementia experience, across physical and psychological symptoms, and social and spiritual concerns. Working closely with practitioners and family members, Dr Ellis-Smith developed a measure that was relevant for the user, easy to understand and
simple to use in routine care. She then evaluated IPOS-Dem to understand whether and how it may work to improve the lives of people living with dementia. From this evaluation, she identified that the IPOS-Dem could support identifying and monitoring the needs of people living with dementia, and strengthen communication between care homes, families and health practitioners, as well as support better care planning.
Several years later, Dr Ellis-Smith is still seeing the growing impact of her work. Since its publication, IPOS-Dem has been used in routine care in care homes, community teams, inpatient wards and hospices across the UK. In 2023, an NHS England Midlands Palliative Dementia Toolkit featuring IPOS-Dem and a training video and manual was launched. Internationally, IPOS-Dem has been translated into German, Italian, Swedish, Swiss German, Thai, Chinese and Persian, with Dutch and Japanese versions on their way. It is also the subject of seven PhD students’ studies both in the UK and internationally.
Around a million people in the UK have a form of dementia. This is projected to rise to 1.4 million people by 2040.15
Putting people with dementia at the heart
IPOS-Dem is a core component of a new digitally delivered intervention that has been co-designed with people with dementia, family carers, and health and social care practitioners and evaluated as part of the £4.7 million Empowering Better End of Life Dementia Care Programme, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
According to the World Health Organization, dementia is currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide.16
IPOS-Dem is of significant relevance to millions of people who live with dementia and their family carers, and takes a strong, collaborative approach. Combining relevance at scale with a collaborative approach that’s informed by clinical experience gives IPOSDem real-world authenticity and the power to keep transforming care for decades to come. And for early-career researchers looking to make an impact of their own, Dr Ellis-Smith has this advice: ‘Develop research questions that are important to the population. It is essential to consult with stakeholders when developing research questions to ensure it’s driven by clinical need. This means working closely with diverse patient and public involvement members and other stakeholders such as practitioners. I would also advise that stakeholder engagement is needed long after the research is completed. I continue to work with practitioners across settings both to support implementation of IPOS-Dem and to learn whichpractitioners need to use IPOS-Dem in routine care.’
Dementia was the leading cause of death in England and Wales for the last 10 years.17
If you’re interested in finding out more about our dementia-related research programmes, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
NEW VACCINE ‘WAKES UP’ THE IMMUNE SYSTEM TO FIGHT AGAINST CANCER
Despite huge advances in knowledge, diagnostics and treatment, cancer remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Half of us will develop the disease in our lifetime, meaning almost everyone will come to know how it feels to hear someone they love has cancer. One exciting field of research is drugs that can ‘wake up’ the body’s immune system to fight against cancer. Our immune system is helpfully designed to spot, hunt down and kill ‘strangers’ in the body, such as invading viruses or bacteria. But this also means it generally can’t ‘see’ cancer cells as a threat, because they’re just our own cells multiplying out of control. A new wave of drugs aims to counteract this immune-system blind spot. The drugs work like a vaccine –‘showing’ the immune system common markers of tumours and training it to remember, recognise and fight cancer cells that express those markers.
A successful trial with 19 patients
In September 2024, King’s shared promising results from the first trial of a new mRNA cancer vaccine. The drug was given to patients with advanced lung cancer, melanoma and other solid tumours at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust – one of the university’s clinical partners.
The results showed that, for many patients on the trial, the drug successfully stimulated their immune systems to respond. It increased numbers of important immune cells in the blood that can kill cancer cells, as well as reducing levels of other immune cells that can prevent the immune system from fighting cancer.
These results suggest that this cancer vaccine could help to effectively treat some advanced cancers by mobilising the immune system to destroy tumour cells, with the potential to halt their growth or even reduce a tumour’s size.
As this was a first-phase trial, it involved only a small group of patients and was designed primarily to test the safety and tolerability of the immunotherapy. Thanks to its positive results, the researchers can now consider planning a larger trial with more patients, to further interrogate its effectiveness.
The perfect ecosystem to develop, test and deliver new cancer treatments
King’s is ideally positioned to drive major leaps forward in cancer treatment, particularly
‘This trial is a huge international effort –it’s still recruiting patients with melanoma and lung cancers across the UK, USA, Spain and Australia. It’s wonderful to be a part of it – we can give our patients the chance to try something that could help fight their cancer, and our involvement is testament to the expertise we hold at King’s, as well as the patients we are so privileged to care for.’ Dr Debashis Sarker, UK Chief Investigator of the trial & Clinical Reader in Experimental Oncology in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences
through developing and testing immunotherapies like vaccines.
We’re partnered with three NHS clinical partners who serve a South East London population among the world’s most socially, ethnically and economically diverse. This offers researchers and drug developers the capacity to host large clinical trials involving diverse groups of people – a chance to ensure treatments will work for everyone, not just those with certain characteristics.
This is exactly what happened in the above trial; global pharmaceutical company Moderna, which designed the drug, chose King’s as one of its seven UK key partners.
Discussing the trial, Dr Debashis Sarker, UK Chief Investigator of the trial & Clinical Reader in Experimental Oncology in the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences explains: ‘This trial is a huge international effort – it’s still recruiting patients with melanoma and lung cancers across the UK, USA, Spain and Australia. It’s wonderful to be a part of it – we can give our patients the chance to try something that could help fight their cancer, and our involvement is testament to the expertise we hold at King’s, as well as the patients we are so privileged to care for.’
If you’re interested in finding out more about the many cancer research initiatives taking place across King’s, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
How cancer vaccines work
BEFORE
The body’s immune cells cannot ‘see’ tumour cells as a threat, and so don’t attack them.
STEP 1
Researchers study the genetic material inside common tumours to identify ‘marker instructions’ that lead to recognisable features appearing on the surface of cancer cells.
STEP 2
They package up these genetic markers inside a drug and give it to a patient. The genetic information incorporates into immune cells in the body, and those cells ‘learn’ new information about which markers indicate a threat.
AFTER
Immune cells in the patient’s body can now recognise and attack tumour cells.
Advancing equality and social mobility
Widespread, entrenched social and economic inequalities mean people from disadvantaged communities do not get the same opportunities for success. As a leading, global university, we are committed to using our strengths and influence to make the world a better place. This starts with a fairer, more equitable society.
Our work includes research that’s tackling biases built into AI, reducing inequities in different communities as we age and using community-based methods to widen access to mental and physical healthcare. We are also advising on improvements to LGBTQ+ policy, and working with schools to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds while giving them the tools they need to fulfil their potential.
It’s imperative we address deep-rooted disparities between the most and least advantaged – for example, through widening access to our university so more people can reach their potential through higher education, and helping to remove the inequalities women face, as we do through the work of our Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. This is how we’re striving to give everyone the ability and opportunity to harness their skills, passion and influence and make a positive impact.
NEW PHILANTHROPIC STUDENT SUPPORT FOR 2024
At King’s, we are committed to advancing equality and social mobility at our university and beyond, to help create a world where everyone is supported to overcome barriers to success. Education can change a young person’s life trajectory. However, young people from the poorest backgrounds are four times less likely to progress to university than their more affluent peers. They are 15 times less likely to progress to a high-tariff university like King’s. With the support of alumni and donors, King’s is working hard to level the educational playing field, ensuring students from all backgrounds are supported not only to get into university but to flourish once they are here.
In August 2024, King’s was awarded University of Sanctuary status in recognition of our ongoing work to ensure that the university is a place of safety, solidarity and, empowerment for people who have been forcibly displaced from their home countries. Our Sanctuary Programme was founded in 2015 and over the past nine years, has harnessed our expertise in education and remote learning to initiate and lead on projects to create positive opportunities for forcibly displaced students and academics. This includes providing Sanctuary Scholarships for forcibly displaced students to access higher education in the UK. At a time where global displacement is rapidly increasing due to ongoing conflict and climate change, it is our priority to ensure this support can continue. We are proud that King’s has committed to provide an additional £500,000 per year to support students through these scholarships for at least the next three years. This commitment ensures we will be able to support more forcibly displaced students from around the world to study at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels at King’s.
With thanks to a generous donation from King’s History alumnus and practising lawyer David Walker, the Walker Bursary has been renewed for September 2024. Providing support for one History BA and one Law LLB student, the bursaries cover the funding gap between the maintenance loans available to undergraduate students and their living costs. This helps to take the financial pressure off students, giving them the chance to maximise on opportunities that connect their academic study and the practical application of History and Law. Talking to us about the bursary, David Walker (History BA 1988) reflects: ‘I am proud to have set up the Walker Bursary for History and Law students at King’s. It is important to me that talented students with a passion for these subjects know that university is a choice that is open to them without finances being a barrier. I loved my time at King’s and I want to support students to be able to make the most of their three years – it goes quickly!’
‘ This support has allowed me to do so much in my time at King’s, but also really helped me mentally. I think the financial support has kept me steady and not feeling “left out” of activities, but also given me the opportunity to do things I thought I’d never be able to do. The experience definitely encourages me to give back in the future.’ Amar (Law LLB), recipient of the Walker Bursary
Suppor ting our students across all degree levels is a key priority at King’s. In 2024, we are excited to have built upon our partnership with Martingale Foundation to increase our Martingale Postgraduate Scholarships in Maths. Initially launched in 2022 to support four combined master’s and PhD students, we saw the first cohort of Martingale scholars begin in 2023. And from September 2024 we are delighted that the Foundation has generously increased their support to fund an additional three master’s students. We are grateful for this partnership, which enables us to widen access to passionate Maths students looking to continue their academic journey beyond their undergraduate studies.
The prospect of living in London as a student during the cost-of-living crisis can be a significant barrier to students from underrepresented groups who would otherwise thrive at King’s. With thanks to generous support from our donors, we can lift the financial burden for students who need it the most and ensure that King’s remains a place where access to a world-class education is not limited by financial hardship.
‘ The support of the Martingale Foundation has been nothing short of miraculous. There is no way that I would be able to afford to continue my education without this scholarship and the peace of mind that it provides me as I learn as much as I can about mathematics… The kind of support provided to me as a Martingale Scholar truly makes me believe in the goodness of humanity.’ Malachy Reynolds (Mathematics MSc), Martingale Scholars
If you’re interested in finding out more about the scholarships at King’s, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
BREAKING THE FINANCIAL BARRIERS TO ASPIRATION
Impact can only be made by those with access to the raw materials needed to create it. Talent, drive, ambition, creativity, tenacity: these are all vital ingredients in King’s mission to make the world a better place. And through the generosity of our supporters, we’re determined to open King’s up to an increasingly diverse set of students, irrespective of background or circumstance. Our Key to King’s initiative, set up to support students in financial need throughout their study, is wholly funded by generous donations of King’s and friends of the university. It’s a unique opportunity for a student to realise their full potential, changing their world and others, always with King’s by their side.
How we can support students to succeed, no matter what
With increasing inequality and a continuing cost-of-living crisis, the chance of university study, especially in a city as expensive as London, is a pathway fewer and fewer individuals can afford. Even for those who can make it, too many have to prioritise paid work over coursework. Educational trips, additional course equipment, decent accommodation and even a basic social life can be out of reach.
This is why the Key to King’s bursary is essential to the ever-increasing impact King’s can deliver through its students. We exist to serve all of society. But we can’t fulfil this mission if we don’t value and champion diversity, equality and inclusivity.
Key to King’s unlocks the unique opportunity of a King’s education for students from under-represented backgrounds. Providing funding of £7,500 per year of undergraduate study, the bursary is aimed at students from low household incomes, those who have young adult carer experience or are from care-experienced, estranged or forced migration backgrounds.
Key to King’s unlocks the unique opportunity of a King’s education for students from under-represented backgrounds.
Bridging the financial gap to equality
In the UK, while a student loan will cover full tuition costs, the maintenance loan is not as comprehensive. The gap between what it costs for a student to live in London and the funding they can get from the government is significant. Key to King’s unlocks the unique opportunity of a King’s education for students from underrepresented backgrounds, aimed at those from low household incomes, those who have young adult care experience or are from careexperiences, estranged or forced migration backgrounds. This programme has already made an incredible impact in its inaugural year, opening doors for one talented student, with three more assisted the year after. We are committed to unlocking these life-changing opportunities for more and more students as we continue to grow the programme.
Student of the Year
Onyinye Udokporo
Our first ever Student of the Year, Onyinye Udokporo (Religion, Politics & Society, 2019; MA Education, Policy & Society, 2020), has always been a shining example of the power of determination. Diagnosed dyslexic at 11 years old, she started a business the following year, gained a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, completed two degrees and had a book published by 22. Her King’s award was in much-deserved recognition of her contribution to the student body and service to society, which continued during and now beyond her studies. When not working on her degree, Onyinye volunteered for several purpose-led organisations including Debate Mate and the City of London Corporation, dedicating time to tackle disadvantage and promote social mobility, making a real impact and raising aspiration in the lives of young people.
‘I established a good relationship with my personal tutors, both at undergraduate and postgraduate, and, thanks to all the support from across King’s, I managed to get really good grades, including a distinction! I didn’t think that was possible, but once the provisions were put in place, I was capable of thriving.’ Onyinye Udokporo, alumna of the School of Education, Communication & Society
If you’re interested in finding out about how you can support students at King’s, please contact philanthropyassociates@ kcl.ac.uk
90% of students claim that the rising cost-of-living has negatively impacted on their mental health.
Giving
back is the greatest gift
Some of our most impactful donations are from those who have had their lives shaped by King’s and go on to shape the lives of others.
‘I didn’t fully appreciate it when I was a student but you have to be quite fortunate to be able to go to medical school. Many great candidates have the ability and drive but not the necessary means or support. I was successful in obtaining grants from different sources, as well as support from my parents. I now realise that I was very privileged to be able to study at King’s. I also enjoyed the course and made a number of lifelong friends. The medical degree has also enabled me to have a very interesting career in clinical medicine and research, and I hope that patients have benefited. So I am very happy to help enable others to pursue their ambitions and be able to contribute to our collective health.’ Supporter of the Key to King’s Bursary Fund 2024
UNDERSTANDING OUR FINANCIAL SELF
From balancing a weekly budget to a deeper analysis of how one relates to money, understanding the impact of financial situations and decisions can lead to a less stressful and healthier relationship with your bank balance.
As a psychotherapist and finance researcher, and an advocate for positive impact through financial literacy and engagement, Dr Ylva Baeckström, Senior Lecturer in Finance at King’s Business School, is a passionate promoter of knowing not only your financial situation but also your style.
Her recent publication around financial attachment and anxiety provides new insight and sound guidance to managing and mitigating money worries – more important than ever given the current economic environment.
The continued cost-of-living crisis is materially harming lives. In addition, there’s increasing emphasis on the negative mental health impact of financial anxiety. A poor economic outlook, job insecurity and stubbornly high levels of household debt have given a new emphasis and urgency to the concept of financial literacy.
A wealth of knowledge to draw upon
Before Dr Baeckström joined King’s, she worked in the financial services industry, and so brings an enormous wealth of experience to her research. She is the Theme lead for sustainable finance at the King’s Centre for Sustainable Business and, throughout her work, collaborates closely with financial services firms with the aim to improve practices, reduce financial inequality and increase inclusion. Her skills, knowledge and insight make Dr Baeckström a powerful voice in positive impact and sound financial guidance, designed to deliver better financial understanding and awareness. She adds her
considerable expertise and experience to our multi-award-winning Business School, already renowned for ranking second in the UK for its Business & Management degrees in this year’s subject rankings in the Complete University Guide. It’s driving forward financial education and research alongside progressing thought leadership, sustainability, and equality, diversity and inclusion. And the impact of Dr Baeckström’s work at King’s is making a real difference to people’s lives today and will do so in the future.
Unpacking our relationship with money
In her April 2024 article, ‘If you have money anxiety, knowing your financial attachment style can help’, Dr Baeckström discusses how attachment theory can determine how a person relates to their finances. Dr Baeckström explains: ‘Attachment theory is a psychological concept. Your attachment style – which can be, for example, secure, anxious or avoidant – explains how you approach creating emotionally intimate relationships with other people. Some people feel secure building relationships. Others avoid close relationships altogether.’
Over the three-year period between May 2021 and May 2024, UK consumer prices increased by 20.8% in total.18
Often focusing on experiences beginning in childhood, Dr Baeckström believes attachment theory can be as relevant to financial relationships and behaviour as it is to personal relationships. How you were looked after, cared for and loved as a child can shape adult relationships, in terms of how secure, anxious or avoidant those relationships are. As a core component of adult life, our relationship with money can follow similar patterns. ‘The way money was handled in your family growing up is likely to have set the blueprint for your financial attachment style.’
Recent data show 76 per cent of children leaving school without sufficient financial knowledge to manage their lives, 80 per cent of people in their early 20s report worrying about not earning enough, and 30 per cent of people in the UK aged 25-64 are not saving at all for retirement. These figures highlight why 75 per cent of people in the UK feel anxious about money.
And there’s never been a more salient time to explore new solutions to chronic financial challenges, across every generation. Dr Baeckström believes attachment theory could help. Just like in personal relationships, understanding one’s attachment style can help nurture a better relationship with money. Dr Baeckström advises: ‘If you feel you don’t understand money, this is likely to hurt your confidence in financial planning and fuel a more avoidant attachment style. Identifying your attachment style can help nurture a better relationship with money. You will be able to understand and predict how and why you react to finances in certain ways.’ As with growth in personal relationships, she advocates for seeking support and guidance as a positive and practical step. ‘Healthy relationships with people and money are both critical for our survival and mental health,’ she says. ‘As an adult, you have the power to improve these relationships.’
Dr Baeckström has recently published an article in The Conversation’s Quarter Life series, which supports those in their 20s and 30s in navigatingthe complexities of life. Her article, ‘How to talk about finances with your partner (especially if one of you makes more money)’, focuses on personal relationships and money, stressing the importance of couples discussing the often anxiety-inducing matter of money, and finding financial balance and values within a relationship while maintaining financial independence.
‘If you feel you don’t understand money, this is likely to hurt your confidence in financial planning and fuel a more avoidant attachment style. Identifying your attachment style can help nurture a better relationship with money. You will be able to understand and predict how and why you react to finances in certain ways.’
Dr Ylva Baeckström
FUTUREPROOFING THE DENTAL WORKFORCE
Inequality in oral health has increased in public awareness in recent times, highlighting the rise in child oral health problems and serious hospital admissions. As a 2021 government report stated: ‘Reducing oral health inequalities is a matter of social justice, an ethical imperative and, for public bodies across the health sector, a legal duty.’ At our King’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences (FoDOCS), we are acutely aware of the inequity within dental care, and the potential impact of the gap between dental practitioners and those they treat. That’s why we are all committed to prioritising empowerment through equality.
Improving access to dentistry
Working to bring equality to a sector as fundamentally important to day-to-day health as dentistry cannot be tackled with a single solution. It involves increasing awareness and aspirations, championing diversity, developing role models, reducing gaps in provision, and directly tackling poor oral health in children.
As one of the top five universities in the world for dentistry, and the largest dental faculty in Europe training over 1,000 dental students at any one time, we champion a demonstrably strong diversity and inclusion ethos throughout the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences (FoDOCS). We’re progressing equality and widening participation for more people from more backgrounds to succeed in a career in oral health. But there’s much more to be done if we want to reverse the trends in worsening oral health. For example, figures published in February 2024 by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities reported tooth decay in children and young people so severe it is resulting in well over an average of 100 operations every day.
We’re continuing to progress one of our flagship projects, ROAR (Raising Oral/STEM
Awareness Reaching low participation areas through investigation of dinosaur teeth and evolution), a collaboration between FoDOCS and the King’s Social Mobility & Widening Participation team. Led by Widening Participation Lead at the Faculty, Dr Jonathan Turner, and Dr Aaron LeBlanc, Lecturer in Dental Biosciences, ROAR is aimed at school children living in areas of England with low participation in higher education and STEM subjects, high levels of oral health need, and lower numbers of oral health professionals. Through workshops, fossils and replica T-rex and Megalosaurus jawbones, ROAR uses immersive teaching to give children a taste of the evolution of teeth and diversity of STEM learning.
On the success of the project, FoDOCS Widening Participation Lead and ROAR co-developer Jonathan Turner reflects: ‘Some areas are cold spots for applications to study medicine, dentistry and the STEM subjects. Early interventions increase children’s awareness and interest in these subjects, prior to making GCSE choices. Our FoDOCS student volunteers are making a fantastic difference –with the help of a few dinosaur fossil replicas!’
Diversity in dentistry is essential
Early-school interventions that widen access to higher education are critical to increasing diversity throughout our Faculty, developing a more representative dental workforce for the future, and ultimately improving the nation’s oral health. To make sure we sustain that progress from school to university applications and success, the Enhanced Support Dentistry Programme (ESDP) empowers students from non-selective state schools within a London borough with extra academic and pastoral support. This support can make all the difference to applying, continuing and succeeding at university.
King’s offers 20 places each year on its ESDP which accepts lower A-Level grade requirements for capable non-selective state school students in London boroughs. Demand for this programme is huge; in 2024, we had 331 applications for just 20 places.
Elias Safi, former ESDP student and dental graduate, discusses the impact of the programme with us: ‘The Enhanced Support Dentistry Programme has been invaluable for my journey as a dental student at King’s these last few years.
48% of our undergraduate students across King’s are from under-represented backgrounds.
I have received lots of support from the different pastoral leads and tutors who have helped me become the dental professional I am today. From the extra dedicated clinical sessions, online support and financial assistance, I have benefited immensely. I am very grateful to the Widening Participation team at King’s as their services have aided me in attaining a place on the ESDP course in the first place. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have contributed to my journey at King’s.
It’s crucial to the future of oral health that leaders in the field are constantly breaking down barriers to improved equity, diversity and inclusivity. We are proud to have more specialists and a greater diversity of research than most, and must use our leadership to widen participation and promote social mobility. These principles shape the fundamental nature of King’s, helping create a deeper impact for more people who want to create a better, more equitable world.
King’s
ranks first in the Russell Group for our contribution to social mobility.19
If you want to find out more about our education and research programmes focused on dentistry, please contact philanthropyassociates@kcl.ac.uk
I have had the privilege of serving as the Chair of Council of King’s College London since 2016. Many years ago, I was a student of War Studies at King’s, and I have also been a Fellow here since 2010.
In that time, the remarkable achievements of the university have continued apace, with much of its work at the leading edge of scholarship, underscored by a steadfast commitment to an ethos of service to society.
King’s is inspired by its past – there is so much of which it can be immensely proud – but the university is certainly not captured by that history. Instead, King’s aspires to tackle global challenges in a way that is forward-looking, ambitious and unfettered by traditional academic boundaries. I have had the good fortune of witnessing first hand the dedication and motivation of our students and staff, so many of whom in so many ways strive to make the world – their world – a better place.
My term as Chair, now nearing its end, has certainly coincided with interesting times. Since 2016, we have lived through political upheaval at home and abroad, the sometimes dramatic effects of a changing climate and, not least, the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. All these and many other challenges affected King’s, some of them very deeply. These events have had an impact not only on a great many of our students and staff but also on their families and friends.
The King’s community, never larger in its history, was sorely tested. Yet it is hard to imagine an institution that could have been more resilient than our own, with King’s being perhaps more committed than ever to putting so many hardships behind us and refocusing on the opportunities ahead. It has been my enormous pleasure to see how, in spite of the difficulties of recent times, King’s as a whole rededicated itself to making a real difference to the world we touch and the people within it.
The physical growth of King’s during this time has included the establishment of the King’s Business School, the creation of the Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People, the redevelopment of the Quad buildings and the building of the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering. King’s has also opened its School for Government and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. These and other significant developments have added greatly to the university’s capacities. They have come to pass not least through the extraordinary contribution of our supporters, who themselves have championed the case for knowledge with purpose.
The pursuit of its mission and the growing opportunities at King’s to do so: none of that would be possible, however, without our truly exceptional students, researchers and staff. As I demit my own office as Chair of King’s, it is our own remarkable people whom I am proudest to salute. It is they who make King’s what it is today, and these last words of admiration belong to them.
Lord Christopher Geidt kcb kcvo obe fkc Chairman of Council
Thank you
I joined King’s in November 2024 as Executive Director of Philanthropy & Alumni Relations. In my short time at this amazing institution, I have been blown away by the breadth, scale and quality of our work. King’s is a truly remarkable university and I am proud to be part of it.
This publication highlights some of the incredible impact enabled by your support. A university is far more than a collection of buildings: it is a community, of students, staff, alumni and supporters. I am already keenly aware of the impact former students and others have made on King’s not just through their philanthropic contributions but also through their time and expertise. I hope you have enjoyed reading about the remarkable things your support has made possible.
Thank you so much. Your generosity is making a genuine difference to King’s and through King’s an impact on the world.
Georgina Cannon Executive Director of Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement
To find out more, go to kcl.ac.uk/fundraising
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