UCL GRAND CHALLENGES
OFFICE OF THE VICE-PROVOST (RESEARCH)
Celebrating the UCL Grand Challenges
Foreword
Even before I came to UCL as President and Provost one year ago, it was
not a secret to me that something very special was going on at UCL under
the name of “Grand Challenges”.
Over the last five years, UCL Grand Challenges has tapped into our
community’s appetite to engage with the world’s problems; provoked new
and intense collaborations across our university’s disciplines; widened
academics’ understanding of the relevance of their research; and
stimulated productive interaction with policymakers, practitioners and
community groups (among many others). It has reinvigorated our service
to the world.
In creating UCL Grand Challenges, Professor David Price – our Vice-Provost
(Research) – has pursued our vision that a university must be more than the
sum of its excellent parts, that we can achieve more collectively than we
can as expert individuals. Ultimately our goal became to deliver a culture of
wisdom: meaning, in this context, the judicious application of knowledge for
the good of humanity, resulting from bringing together different expert
perspectives to address issues in their full complexity.
Long-held values such as these form the basis of our new 20-year
strategy, UCL 2034. Cross-disciplinary research such as that exemplified
by UCL Grand Challenges has a critical role to play in the implementation
of that strategy.
At first glance, the notion that a leading university should emphasise socially
relevant cross-disciplinary research may not appear to be very radical. Yet I
can assure you that the odds are stacked against engagement with such
collaboration and the dissemination of its outcomes. You will hear tonight
about some of the difficulties encountered, as well as some of the ways in
which UCL has sought to address these issues.
However, in one respect, David and his team were pushing against an open
door: since UCL was founded almost two centuries ago, it has sought
societal relevance and opportunities to engage with the world. UCL Grand
Challenges has provided a new way for this generation of researchers to fulfil
their responsibilities; more than 400 of them have been directly involved –
supervising a grant or authoring an output – while many more, of course,
have attended roundtables, town meetings and public events, or otherwise
contributed to discussions and helped to shape our thinking on new
activities and ways forward.
This evening marks the start of a conversation about the next stage of UCL
Grand Challenges: for example, how to remove obstacles to collaboration
across disciplines; which global problems should be prioritised; how to
involve students more deeply in these activities; how best to capture and
share our insights; and how to develop even more fruitful interaction with
those best-positioned to contribute to and implement wise solutions.
I hope that you will engage in this conversation, not just tonight but over the
coming years. Thank you.
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Professor Michael Arthur
UCL President and Provost
13 October 2014
Celebrating UCL Grand Challenges
13 October 2014
Welcome
Professor David Price
UCL Vice-Provost (Research)
Short film
The UCL Grand Challenges
How we did it
Dr Ian Scott
Principal Facilitator, UCL Grand Challenges
Reflections on UCL Grand Challenges
Professor Yvonne Rydin
Chair of Planning, Environment & Public Policy, UCL Bartlett School of
Planning
Professor Nick Tyler
Chadwick Chair of Civil Engineering, UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic
Engineering
Panel discussion
UCL Grand Challenges 2034
Chair: Professor Michael Arthur
UCL President and Provost
Dr Tim Beasley-Murray
UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies
Dr Sarah Bell
UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
Professor Anthony Costello
Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health
Professor Alan Penn
Dean of the UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment
Professor Maria Wyke
UCL Greek & Latin
Closing remarks
Professor David Price
UCL Vice-Provost (Research)
Drinks reception in the UCL Front Quad Marquee
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Our approach
UCL’s research, whether curiosity-driven or
motivated by solving specific issues, is inspired
by the world around us. We recognise that
humanity faces complex challenges, which
require us to think beyond traditional disciplinary
boundaries. This cross-disciplinary approach lies
at the heart of the UCL Grand Challenges, which
aims to bring together academic expertise from
across UCL to develop holistic solutions to global
problems. During the last five years the
programme has become an intrinsic part of the
way we understand and implement our approach
to research.
We believe that our strength lies in the breadth
of expertise contained within the university, and
that this presents a wealth of opportunities for
research staff to benefit from an academic
community, establish new collaborations, and
explore new perspectives. This year we launched
the UCL Grand Challenges Summer School,
in order to begin to embed this approach in
our teaching programme.
We have supported a wide range of impactful and
exciting research; this report highlights just a few
examples of the work that has been funded so far.
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GCSC
GCGH
Grand Challenge of
Sustainable Cities
Grand Challenge of Global Health
The UCL Grand Challenge of Global Health brings
together our university’s diverse skills and expertise
to find new ways to reduce health inequality in the
world, with a focus on people and populations in the
global south. We facilitate novel collaborations
between healthcare specialists (many based in the
UCL Institute for Global Health) and researchers and
scholars from non-medical disciplines, including
engineering, the social sciences and humanities.
Working together, breaching traditional disciplinary
divides, our experts can help to overcome the
barriers that slow or block progress towards
achieving better health for everyone in the world.
By the end of the 21st century, the
majority of the world’s population will
live in cities. As pressure on the urban
environment increases, it is crucial that
we consider how we can manage the
earth’s resources and build cities which
are sustainable and fit for the future.
The UCL Grand Challenge of Sustainable
Cities considers questions of architecture,
design, sanitation, transport, food
security, energy and quality of life. UCL’s
expertise stretches across a broad range
of subjects and enables us to take a
holistic approach to the way we live,
build, and plan for the future.
GCII
GCHW
Grand Challenge of
Intercultural Interaction
Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing
The relationships between people,
communities and culture are complex
and continually evolving. Religion,
politics, ethnicity and cultural heritage
are closely interwoven and often
volatile subjects, and throughout
history to the modern day, scholars
have tried to understand the complex
factors which affect how societies
relate to each other, and how we can
support democracy and global
stability. The UCL Grand Challenge of
Intercultural Interaction draws on our
strengths in the arts and humanities,
social and political sciences, as well
as laws, economics, history and
heritage, to develop our understanding
of societies, culture and civilisation.
The UCL Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing
considers the diverse factors that influence our sense of
physical and emotional wellbeing. Wellbeing means not
just freedom from disease and pain, but encompasses
the emotional and social aspects of the nature of
humanity. GCHW provides forums for discussion and
resources for highly creative joint activity addressing
complex issues such as ageing, behaviour and social
interaction affected by our biology, the environment
(built and natural) in which we live, and how we relate
to and look after one another. UCL has an institutional
culture that encourages and supports collaboration on
these issues between researchers and scholars from
across our university, recognising that no single
discipline ‘owns’ wellbeing, and all have a role to play
in working for its improvement.
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GCGH
Highlights from the
UCL Grand Challenge of Global Health
Managing the health effects of climate change
Research
A major cross-disciplinary project examined the potential impact of climate change on issues
including population health, sanitation and changing patterns of disease. The UCL–Lancet
Commission declared climate change to be the biggest global health threat of the 21st century,
and made a series of recommendations to policymakers and health professionals on how to
mitigate these impacts. A follow-up commission is underway.
Research
Maternal and child health
A UCL study in very poor villages in eastern India involved women’s groups engaging in
participatory learning and action through play, stories and games. Group members themselves
identified newborn health problems within the community and selected their own strategies to
address the problems, which they then implemented. Where at least a third of pregnant women
participated, maternal deaths were cut by almost half, and neonatal deaths by over a third.
Event
Non-communicable diseases
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes,
cancer and mental illness – kill more people worldwide than any other cause, with 80% of
these deaths occurring in the poorest countries. The UCL Global Health NCD Season was
a series of events and exhibitions to highlight the global rise of NCDs and how their spread
can be checked.
Event
Global population
Population Footprints, the UCL–Leverhulme Trust symposium on human population growth
and global carrying capacity, was held in London and Kenya. Hundreds of delegates and
speakers addressed policy concerns on issues including reproductive health and rights,
climate change, sustainable growth, migration and ageing. A series of public events
complemented the sessions for policymakers and practitioners.
Inclusion health
Small Grant
A symposium brought together health professionals from
across the world to explore how health services can be
designed to better meet the needs of homeless people
and those from other excluded groups, including refugees,
travellers and sex workers. The organisers subsequently
convened a meeting of research funders to discuss
research gaps in inclusion health.
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A small sample of other GCGH activities
Projects
• The Nutrition in Emergencies
Regional Training Initiative
• Infrastructure and 21st-Century
Infectious Diseases
• Community Resource
Centres to Improve the Health
of Women and Children in
Mumbai Slums
• The UCL Dengue Workshop
• Effects of Pesticide Exposure
on Working Children
• The Challenge of
Impact Evaluation in
Community-Based
Rehabilitation Programmes
Small Grants
• Essential Diversions: Urine
Diversion Toilets in Durban,
South Africa
• Burns as a Result of Violence
against Women: Where crime
science meets global health
• Socioeconomic Factors and
Suicide Mortality Rates in Iran
• The Dual Burden of TB and
Diabetes in Kyrgyzstan
• Stigma of Homeless Women
with Mental Illness in South
India
• HIV in Post-Conflict Sierra
Leone
• Law & Global Health, an
international colloquium
Events
• Transformative Education
for Global Health: Preparing
professionals for an
interdependent world
• An annual conference
marking World TB Day
• Communicating Climate Risk
and the Implications for Food
Security
• Tackling the Health Divide:
From western Europe to
eastern Europe and central
Asia, one of the UCL Institute
for Global Health Symposia
• The UK–China workshop,
Emerging Public Health
Challenges: Facilitating joint
working between the UK and
the northeast Asia region
• Human Right to Health, a
two-day conference
Key contributors and
collaborators
GCGH draws on a wide
range of expertise within and
beyond UCL, including:
• the Global Alliance for
Chronic Diseases
• the Leonard Cheshire
Disability & Inclusive
Development Centre at
UCL
• the UCL Institute of Health
Equity
• the UCL Institute for Risk
& Disaster Reduction
• the UCL Centre for
Philosophy, Justice &
Health.
Find out more at: www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health
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GCSC
Highlights from the
UCL Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities
Research
London 2062
A UCL–Future of London symposium brought together leading academics and practitioners to
debate London’s energy future, housing challenges, economic development and transport
planning. This led to the development of a multi-author book, Imagining the Future City: London
2062, stimulating debate about the role of policymakers and practitioners in shaping a
sustainable capital city over the next 50 years.
Research
Shaping cities for health
The UCL–Lancet Commission on Healthy Cities was a cross-disciplinary investigation of the
role that urban planning can play in making cities healthier and more equitable places to live.
Its report, Shaping Cities for Health: The complexity of planning urban environments in the
21st century, presented a wide-ranging set of recommendations regarding how planning the
urban fabric of our cities can help to deliver health improvements.
Event
Urban water poverty
A panel discussion and symposium led to the publication of a special issue of the
International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development. It is estimated that one sixth
of the world’s population lives in slums or unsettled communities, with limited access
to clean water and sanitation; the events and journal explored how to meet the
Millennium Development Goals aim to reduce this source of ill-health.
Event
Sustainable resources for sustainable cities
A conference organised with the UCL Institute for Sustainable
Resources addressed how growing cities can meet their resource
needs – such as housing, food, safe water, waste disposal, and
energy for heating and cooling – without compromising the future
of the city, the region or humanity. New funding opportunities were
developed to stimulate future research on urban resources.
Rewriting graffiti
Small Grant
Graffiti and street art costs the UK an estimated £1bn a year, and
is seen by many as antisocial behaviour and vandalism; but in
some contexts it can be a positive part of the urban environment.
Rewriting Graffiti: A research network and debate series, with
expert contributions from architecture, art, criminology and
policy, challenged perspectives on graffiti and proposed strategic
responses.
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A small sample of other GCSC activities
Projects
• The UCL Urban Lab’s Urban
Pamphleteer series
• The UCL Carbon Governance
Project
• The UCL Energy Institute’s
People, Energy & Buildings:
Distribution, diversity and
dynamics
• Social Enterprise for Haiti
• ‘Planet U(CL)’: Embedding
sustainability in universities
• Disaster Risk Reduction
Events
• The launch of Beyond the
Ghetto: An interdisciplinary
perspective on patterns of
ethnicity in the built
environment, as part of UCL
Migration Week
Small Grants
• Tsunamis in Port Cities from
Generation to Impact
• Sustainability and the
Megalopolis: Facing the urban
reality of the 21st century
• Blackout Prevention and
Solutions through
Multidisciplinary Techniques
• Heritage & Climate Change:
Protection at any cost?
• Assessment of Alternative
Transport Models for Havana
• The (Dis)Comforts of Home:
Cross-cultural perspectives on
domestic energy use
• Integrated Algae Growth in the
Built Environment
• Thinking across Boundaries:
Planning dilemmas in the urban
Global South
• Whose Olympics?
Transformations in urban open
spaces and the legacy of
London 2012
• the UCL Development
Planning Unit
• Just Enough: Sufficiency and
the cultural imagination
• Behaviour Change: Reducing
waste
• the UCL Institute for
Sustainable Resources
• The Suburban Food Basket:
The role of spatial setting and
social context in providing
access to healthy food
Key contributors and
collaborators
GCSC draws on a wide
range of expertise within and
beyond UCL, including:
• the UCL Transport
Institute
• the UCL Urban Lab
• the UCL Centre for
Sustainable Heritage
• the UCL Energy Institute.
Find out more at: www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable-cities
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GCII
Highlights from the
UCL Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction
Research
Negotiating religion
A series of workshops, Negotiating Religion: Inquiries into the history and present of religious
accommodation, discussed how religious communities have created and defended their place in
society in history and today. The main objective was to stimulate debate about the complex
relationship between religion and society, thereby exploring the impact of religious legacies in
European history and contributing to a better understanding of the role of moderation and
negotiation in the shaping of contemporary societies.
Mobile technology, communities and environmental change
Research
A project, Rapid Cultural Change in Ethiopia: Testing new technology for mapping community
responses, investigated how mobile technology can collect data on community responses to
environmental change. It explored how mobile technology can support agro-pastoral
communities in Ethiopia, whose voices are often unheard in political and policy debates.
Event
Urban migration on film
The UCL Urban Migration Film Festival explored the impact migrants have on their physical, social,
cultural and economic environment, and the factors affecting their rights, mobility and settlement.
The festival considered how journeys, transition and the migrant experience are portrayed in films. A
cross-disciplinary panel of experts were joined in discussion by film-makers at the end of each session.
Event
Digital humanities
Workshops, talks and events were held to mark UCL Digital Humanities Month,
spreading awareness of how the use of computational tools and techniques can
transform humanities research, and how humanities-based approaches can enhance
research in digital sciences. New collaboration was supported through a competitive
prize workshop that awarded funding to support new cross-disciplinary research.
Minority organ donation
Small Grant
An educational campaign, Increasing Awareness of
Organ Donation in Black and Minority Ethnic (BME)
Groups, aimed to identify and tackle some of the issues
surrounding awareness of faith and cultural stances
towards organ donation. Despite being over-represented
on the active transplant waiting list, BME people are
under-represented as deceased donors. The project
conducted outreach workshops and is developing a
strategy to increase organ donation rates.
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A small sample of other GCII activities
Projects
• Divided Cities
• Sexuate Subjects: Politics,
poetics, ethics
• Forced Evictions & Human
Rights
• East Looks West: East
European travel writing on
European identities and
divisions, 1600 - 2000
Small Grants
• Grey Areas: Between Art
and the Law
• Where Next for Social Media:
How do we bring together
theory and practice?
• A Common Foreign Policy?
Analysing foreign policy of EU
member states using
speeches at the UN General
Assembly
• Trust and Distrust in the
Eastern Bloc and the Soviet
Union, 1956–1991
• Human Creativity: Do East
and West really differ?
• Learning Together:
Collaborative workshops for
refugee doctors and
tomorrow’s doctors
• The Dawning of Empires in
the Ancient Near East: A
dynamical systems approach
Events
• Europe & Islam in Late Antiquity
and the Middle Ages
Key contributors and
collaborators
• UCL Migration Week
GCII draws on a wide range
of expertise within and
beyond UCL, including:
• Law & Language, a Current
Legal Issues Colloquium
• the UCL Centre for
Transnational History
• Tourism as Colonial Policy?: The
history of heritage tourism in
British Mandate Palestine and
Transjordan
• Backlash? The resurgence of
homophobia in contemporary
cities
• the UCL Global Migration
Symposia Series
• Global Perspectives on the
Economic Crisis
• the UCL Centre for Digital
Humanities
• the UCL Institute for
Human Rights
• the UCL European
Institute
• the UCL Centre for Early
Modern Exchanges
• the UCL Centre for
Research into the
Dynamics of Civilisation.
Find out more at: www.ucl.ac.uk/intercultural-interaction
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GCHW
Highlights from the
UCL Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing
Research
Culture and health
The UCL–Lancet Commission on Culture & Health, developed through the UCL Science,
Medicine & Society Network, examined ways in which health and health systems are critically
entwined with domains of culture, and reviewed the systematic neglect of culture in health. Its
report will address how people construct wellbeing and health in strikingly different and complex
ways, and the impact of alternative socio-cultural values on health consequences.
Research
Heritage in hospitals
Researchers and curators from UCL and UCLH established the Heritage in Hospitals project to
evaluate the impact on the wellbeing of patients of handling museum objects, such as archaeological
artefacts, artworks and natural history specimens. Patients reported that the sessions distracted
them from their clinical surroundings, and left them feeling healthier and happier. Findings from
the study will contribute to a best practice guide for museum and care worker training.
Event
Ageing issues
Through a series of events, the UCL Festival of Ageing took a cross-disciplinary look at the issues
arising from an ageing population. Academics from a broad spectrum of age-related research
tackled questions such as: how can we deliver better health services for older people; what are the
implications of people working longer; and what can we do as a society to support older people?
European healthcare
Event
A one-day conference, The Future of Healthcare in Europe, brought
together expertise from academia, government, public policy
institutes, think-tanks and the third sector from across Europe. It
defined the major health challenges that Europe faces – including the
impact of an ageing population, the rise of mental health problems and
the effects of chronic diseases fuelled by environmental,
socioeconomic and lifestyle factors – and explored ways in which
different European countries were responding to them.
Indoor and outdoor running
Small Grant
A research project – Indoor versus Outdoor Running: A comparison of those who exercise
in different environments, how they relate to their bodies when they do so, and what this
suggests about the future promotion of public health through exercise – set out to establish
whether there are distinct cultures of indoor and outdoor running, and what implications
there might be for the promotion of public health through exercise.
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A small sample of other GCHW activities
Events
• UCL Wellbeing Week
• The Science of Happiness
• UCL MedTech Week
• How Universities can Help
Create a Wiser World
• The Complexity of
Decision-Making
Small Grants
• Tracking Activity in Relation
to Disease: Using smartphone
technology to create novel
epidemiological tool
• Distress in Elderly Renal Patients
• Development of Rapid Prototypes
for Muscle Augmentation Using
Magnetic Actuation
• How to Get On (with) a Bus: A
pilot study of wheelchair users’
engagement with research on
bus accessibility
• Socio-Cognitive Skills in Children
with Visual Impairment
• Sporting Chance: Testing the
evolutionary determinants of
health in inner city schools
• Extreme Dieting and Wellbeing:
What are the risks of intermittent
fasting diets?
• Identifying the Essential Elements
of Visual Representations of Pain
Projects
• Literature, Welfare &
Wellbeing: The poetics of the
Scandinavian welfare state
• Crime, Policing and
Citizenship
• The Social Gradient in Health:
How fair retirement could
make a difference
• Can Social Robots Reduce
Loneliness and Improve
Psychological Wellbeing?
• Mapping Policy with Big Data:
The health policy agenda and its
networks
Key contributors and
collaborators
GCHW draws on a wide
range of expertise within and
beyond UCL, including:
• the UCL Science,
Medicine & Society
Network
• the UCL Centre for
Behaviour Change
• the UCL Computational
Life & Medical Sciences
Network
• the UCL Institute of
Healthy Ageing
• the UCL Crucible Centre
for Lifelong Health &
Wellbeing
• the UCL Institute for
Biomedical Engineering.
Find out more at: www.ucl.ac.uk/human-wellbeing
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What next for UCL Grand Challenges?
You can help to shape
the next stage of UCL
Grand Challenges by
contributing your
thoughts on the
following questions,
and by posing other
questions.
• What are the key global problems to address in the next
two decades?
• In what areas are we not yet maximising UCL’s impact?
• How can we ensure that academics of all disciplines and
career stages are able to engage with cross-disciplinary
collaboration?
• What are the most effective ways to facilitate student
involvement with UCL Grand Challenges?
• How can we enhance collaboration with communities,
business, government and the third sector?
• Are there so-far unexploited methods to share our insights?
• How can we increase our international engagement?
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Supporting UCL Grand Challenges
UCL Grand Challenges
has been generously
supported by visionary
philanthropists, helping
to support UCL’s
long-held values of
thinking differently,
challenging convention
and forging bold new
lines of inquiry across
the institution. These
gifts have supported the
activities of dozens of
UCL researchers,
hundreds of participants
and will impact positively
on thousands of
beneficiaries in
London, the UK, and
around the world.
Alumna Dr Carol Bell (UCL Humanities MA 2001; Archaeology PhD
2005) has generously supported the UCL Grand Challenges Small
Grants scheme, which last year enabled projects on the future of social
media, using smart phone technology for public health monitoring, and
the development of urban water reuse networks.
Alumni Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas (UCL English 1993)
have given generous support to projects that included the first
performance of a Jacobean play for 400 years, a conference on
gender and feminist perspectives in the Arab Spring, and a public
forum on climate change.
The UCL Grand Challenge of Global Health has benefited from
several generous donations. Alumnus Dany Farha (UCL Statistics,
Computing, Operational Resources and Economics 1992) has
supported research in migration and disease transmission, childhood
malnutrition, and international law and global health.
Other alumni donors include Ann-Margaret and John Walton
(UCL Economics 1968), who are supporting new research into
treatments for tuberculosis, and Martin Rushton-Turner (UCL Laws
1986), whose support for new research in maternal and infant nutrition
in Nepal helped to generate data that unlocked funding worth over
£3 million from the Department for International Development.
In addition, UCL Grand Challenges has also benefited from the
support of hundreds of donors to UCL’s Regular Giving programme,
which has provided more than £275,000 for projects in recent years.
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Contact
UCL Grand Challenges
Dr Ian Scott, Principal Facilitator
+44 (0)20 7679 8583
grand-challenges@ucl.ac.uk
UCL, Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
www.ucl.ac.uk/grand-challenges