GC Renewal Town Meeting, 21 April 2016
Welcome to the Grand Challenges 2021
UCL’s President and Provost Professor Michael Arthur began by welcoming the 200 or so
participants and noting with pride that cross-disciplinary interaction was now part of the lifeblood of
UCL so much so that researchers not involved were now slightly unusual.
Professor Arthur noted that while the Grand Challenges have become an effective, well known and
externally respected flagship for UCL’s cross-disciplinarity, how could they deliver more, in particular
to support the UCL2034 strategy?
Strengthening the governance of Grand Challenges
Professor David Price (UCL Vice-Provost for Research) recalled the origins of the Grand Challenges in
2008; a way to take advantage of the broad expertise and collegiality at UCL to bring colleagues
together to address global problems.
The next 5-years of the Grand Challenges (GC2021) are strongly oriented towards “Disruptive
Thinking”. This will refresh the original Grand Challenges of Global Health, Sustainable Cities,
Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing, as well as introduce and develop two new Grand
Challenges of “Transformative Technology” and “Justice and Equality”.
The popular and successful Grand Challenges small grants programme will continue in GC2021, but
the renewed programme will be strengthened by changes to governance. Each Grand Challenge will
be run by a Working Group with co-chairs from different faculties, responsible for developing
proposals for strategic initiatives. The proposals would be considered by an overarching Grand
Challenges Executive Board.
Priority areas for existing Grand Challenges
Professor Therese Hesketh (UCL Institute of Global Health) spoke on Global Health (GCGH) noting
the importance of outward-looking relationships with health stakeholders in the global south and
bridging the divide between academia, policy makers and practitioners to address the key questions
of Global Health.
GCGH proposed priority areas include a continued commitment to aligning with the UN Sustainable
Development Goals, as well as health emergencies (infectious diseases), non-communicable
diseases, anti-microbial resistance, mental health, ageing populations, urbanization and migration
and the health impact of climate change.
Professor Jenny Robinson (UCL Geography) presented her thinking on Sustainable Cities (GCSC),
noting its potential to generate broader collaborative platforms and leverage GCSC investment to
support external funding opportunities through the UCL Research Domains.
It would be vital to capitalise on the competitive advantages of UCL urban studies and to encourage
and support collaborations addressing research needed for pre-competitive outputs such as novel
commercially applicable technologies. Other priorities are supply chain issues (including 'Pipeline'
questions smart cities and urban commons initiatives), the financing of urban infrastructure in
globalization and the challenge of affordable housing, building on the 2015-16 focus on the London
Housing Crisis.
Professor Maria Wyke (UCL Greek & Latin) described plans for Intercultural Interaction grand
challenge (GCII), noting the delivery of over 100 events since 2009-10. GCII had been successful in
stimulating interaction between scholars in Arts & Humanities, Social & Historical Sciences and Laws
including establishing new cross-disciplinary platforms such as CREDOC (the Centre for Research on
the Dynamics of Civilisation). There was potential for further engagement of this kind provoked by
the ‘Wonderments of the Cosmos’ initiative, linking Humanities and Social Sciences to the Physical
Sciences.
Professor Wyke noted the potential to develop further GCII’s Religion & Society theme through a
focus in 2016-17 on extreme religion and migration. Other 2016-17 initiatives included Reimagining
the Middle East, a pan-GC South Asian Voices Season and building on the Grand Challenges-UCL
Academy L2 Connected Curriculum collaboration.
The GCII Executive Group favoured a name change for GC2021 to “Cultural Understanding”, as the
world experiences plenty of intercultural interaction, but not always that which supports safe and
secure coexistence, for example the recent murder of a Muslim shopkeeper by a co-religionist in
Scotland.
“Cultural Understanding” would it was hoped, convey ambition to solve problems associated with
inter and intra-cultural interaction. As GCCU, the challenge would seek to expand its crossdisciplinary reach and pursue themes that could lead to Lancet-type commissions, including through
more engagement with students, and with civil society.
Dr Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (UCL School of European Languages & Cultures) gave a manifesto for
Human Wellbeing (GCHW) noting the goal of not just living, but living well and flourishing. The world
retains socially unjust structures that sustain inequalities and distrust, while migrants seek better
lives and social mobility has become out of reach for many.
The importance of well-being is now better acknowledged, even by politicians including British PM
David Cameron, who have recognised it as an indicator of societal success.
The first phase of GCHW focused on ageing and behaviour, leading to creation of the Centre for
Behaviour Change. The Science, Medicine & Society Network stemmed from GCHW concern that
research in the physical, social and medical sciences don’t always cohere effectively for the benefit
of humankind. The SMS Network’s first major output was a Lancet Commission report on Culture &
Health, used to target WHO policy makers.
The GCHW interest in the impact of ageing on wellbeing will continue through a focus on
demographic change and longevity in the GC2021.
Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens (UCL Chemical Engineering) illustrated the value of establishing a
Transformative Technology (provisional title) Grand Challenge (GCTT). Professor Coppens noted the
influence of a US National Science Board report on ‘Transformative Research’ in terms of “ideas,
discoveries, or tools that radically change our understanding of an important existing scientific or
engineering concept or educational practice or leads to the creation of a new paradigm or field of
science, engineering, or education.”
The report encouraged a renaissance or rebirth of innovation in Engineering. Professor Coppens, a
Belgian, saw in this an opportunity to reconceptualise the discipline as one of the Humanities, noting
the etymological connection between the French word for engineer ingénieur and ingenuity.
Professor Coppens highlighted the work and interests of several Centre for Nature Engineering
(CNIE) investigators based in different UCL departments on bioreceptive façade panels. Highlighting
the award of a prestigious RAE Fellowship to recent Chemical Engineering/CNIE PhD graduate Silo
Meoto, Professor Coppens noted that women remained under-represented in Engineering and that
greater promotion of women and policies sympathetic to family life were needed.
Professor Coppens referred to the work of John Prausnitz (Univ of California, Berkeley) "Chemical
Engineering for the Postmodern World" and it’s call that to remain relevant, chemical engineering
practice and education must also give attention to meeting social needs such as environmental
protection, trust-in-advertising, product and production safety.
Professor Colm O'Cinneide (UCL Laws) spoke of his enthusiasm for establishing a Justice & Equality
grand challenge (GCJE), noting that the other five GCs all spoke of issues intersecting with ambition
to achieve justice and equality. Unfairness and inequity are becoming very prominent in political
debates, for example, inequitable access to social goods, education, technology and resources, or
more simply put: ‘The future is already with us; it’s just unevenly distributed’.
UCL is well-positioned to make a serious and substantial contribution based on its ethos, history,
location, and unique cross-disciplinary strengths and GCJE could act as a stimulus; enabling
interested scholars and researchers to find one another.
Everyone's work intersects with Justice and Equality, so GCJE will challenge us to think about how
and what we're doing in that respect. It will also help establish cross-disciplinary frameworks and
communities of interest, and find new ways to respond to the challenges of unmet need for justice
equality.
Audience Q&A Session
A lively exchange followed between members of the audience and the panel speakers. The Provost
encouraged Grand Challenges to think of a more aspirational title than ‘Transformative Technology’
for the new 5th GC. In answer to a suggestion from Dr Jack Stilgoe that GCTT should be more driven
by societal concerns than by researcher interest, Professor Coppens replied that he saw no conflict
between the two: both were important to development of GCTT.
Professor May Cassar noted that Cultural Heritage had become a growing field of research at UCL,
represented by >100 researchers in 29 UCL departments. Its interests and potential for greater
visibility and broader cross-disciplinary collaboration could be facilitated through the suggested GCII
reframe/rename to Cultural Understandings, and also through the other GCs including Justice &
Equality. Professor O’Cinneide considered that the universal right to cultural heritage had great
potential as a pan-GC theme, impacting all six GCs.
Concerning final settlement on the names of refreshed and new GCs, Professor Price indicated that
there would be a post-town meeting online consultation [probably via a link to the GC website from
an announcement in TheWeek@UCL].
Responding to a suggestion from a member of the audience that researchers needed to be guided
by Research Council interests in deciding what to focus upon in their activities, Professor Dave Delpy
FRS FRAE FAMS (Chief Executive of EPSRC (2007-2014); Professor Price’s predecessor as UCL ViceProvost (Research)) urged academics to drive and set the agenda – not to wait for the RCs.
Dr Nick Maxwell suggested that the GC programme should organise and deliver an ongoing
symposium series exploring the interplay between global problems and more specific issues.
Professor Wyke advised that the under the new governance arrangements for GC2021, the GC
Executive Board would be the forum for considering topics of broad relevance to several or all GCs,
and how the GC programme should respond to specific global crises.
Other topics raised in the Q&A included mHealth and UCL data-sets as an enabler for GCs. On the
latter, Professor Hesketh noted that the problem of underused data-sets was a general one – by no
means unique to UCL.
Closing the event, Professor Price thanked the panel speakers and the GC team and UCL Corporate
Events organisers and invited everyone present to a networking reception. He also drew attention to
the participation of UCL Press and their stand at the reception .
Ian Scott
Principal Facilitator
UCL Grand Challenges