The vision of our founders, for each institution, was to provide ‘hope and opportunity’ for the less privileged population in East London and the suburbs of the City of London. These four, historic institutions now make up Queen Mary University of London, a global University committed to improving lives locally, nationally and internationally.
Today, Queen Mary is unique. True to our founders’ vision, we continue to open the doors of opportunity by seamlessly combining world-leading strengths in both education and research. We have an impressive and well-deserved reputation for attracting national and international students from all backgrounds, whilst retaining a deep and enduring engagement with our local community. Our potential to address some of society’s long-standing, and frustrating, issues with social mobility is unrivalled. We offer a Russell Group research-led education and attract local, national and international students from diverse backgrounds, actively seeking out and recruiting students from backgrounds currently under-represented at universities like ours.
Our strategy is based on our two main core areas of activity: education and the student experience; and research and innovation. Global and public engagement, shaping policy, economic and societal impact, entrepreneurship and developing partnerships are embedded in all our activities.
Our students deserve an outstanding education, coupled with tailored personal support. At Queen Mary, we co-create our pedagogical approach with our students to deliver a gold-standard education. Our wrap-around student support ensures our students are able to fulfil their potential and get the most from their studies and experiences. There is more detail on our education and student experience strategy on page x.
We have research strengths across wide-ranging disciplines: true, world-leading highlights. Areas such as Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Linguistics, English, History, Drama, Engineering and Life Sciences are national and international leading. The quality of our research speaks for itself. Through this strategy we will significantly build the quantity and capacity of our research, whilst maintaining our world-leading quality, through supporting our scholars at all stages of their careers. Through the creation of Interdisciplinary University Research Institutes, Centres and Networks, we will build opportunities for scholars from different disciplines to work together to address the major challenges facing society. Our University Institutes will be vibrant hubs, both physical and virtual, in areas that align with our strengths and societal challenges including Global Health and Inequalities, Digital Environment, Ethics and Governance and Creative Industries. These will be underpinned by world-leading University Centres of excellence and University Networks. All University Institutes, Centres and Networks will be continually reviewed and refreshed to ensure that they align with our core strengths and allow new and focused areas to develop in a creative and responsive way. There is more detail about our research and innovation strategy on page seven.
There is no doubt we are living in interesting times. The turbulence in the national and international sector, and in politics and economies, across the world, is unprecedented. Personally, I doubt this will settle down. Our contribution as a university will always remain the same, irrespective of external pressures. We will remain true to our vision of opening the doors of opportunity through our education and research. We will continue to expand the boundaries of knowledge through our research, to help tackle inequalities and other global challenges facing society. We will also build on our success of attracting students from traditionally under-represented groups and ensure we serve them well. By the end of the term of this strategy we will be the most inclusive research-intensive university in the world. We will prepare our graduates to take their place in an ever-changing world as the next generation of leaders in their chosen fields.
We are already a global university, with footprints in Paris, Malta, Athens and Singapore, and significant transnational education in China. Our staff collaborate all over the world, and the impact of our research is felt across the world. We have a strong sense of place in East London, which is combined with a global outlook and a full understanding that we must prepare our students to be global citizens. Over the course of this strategy we will further develop the global Queen Mary family and footprint. We will continue to build strategic partnerships with the very best universities and businesses overseas, further developing global policy relationships and expanding and bringing greater coherence to our physical and virtual international footprint. We will ensure our alumni retain a close connection with their University throughout their lives, and enable them to be our advocates and ambassadors as well as giving them the opportunity to contribute to the future development of Queen Mary.
The heart of this strategy is the Queen Mary community: our students, staff and alumni. We will support, develop and nurture our people so that they can be the best they can be. We want our staff and students to be entrepreneurial, and we will support them to realise their ambitions and dreams. We will embrace a culture of creativity and innovation and support our staff and students to take risks, within a managed framework. We will build resilience with our communities to understand that sometimes ideas and projects will fail, and it is how we deal with and move on from failure that sets us apart.
We are incredibly proud of, and cherish, the diversity and quality of our student and our staff communities. We know from experience that diversity is a potent catalyst for ground-breaking ideas: in conversations in corridors snatched between lectures; when science and the humanities work together; and between students who grew up round the corner and those from the other side of the world. We will continue to embrace and enhance this diversity of thought and opinion in everything we do in the firm belief that when different views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes place.