King's College London

King's College London

King's College London (informally King's or KCL; formerly styled King's College, London) is a public research university situated in London, UK, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's was founded in 1829 by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington and received its royal charter in the same year, making it arguably the third-oldest university in England. King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London in 1836[7][8][9] and has grown through mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology (in 1985), the Institute of Psychiatry (in 1997), and the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals and Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (in 1998). King's has become the largest centre for graduate and post-graduate medical teaching and biomedical research in Europe as per number of students and is regarded as one of the leading multidisciplinary research universities in the world.

The college has five campuses: its main campus on the Strand in central London, three other Thames-side campuses (Guy's, St Thomas' and Waterloo) and another in Denmark Hill in south London.[16] King's has 28,730 students and 5,948 staff and had a total income of £684.2 million in 2014/15, of which £210.8 million was from research grants and contracts. It has the fifth largest endowment of any university in the United Kingdom, and the largest of all universities in London. Its academic activities are organised into nine faculties which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres and research divisions. King's is home to six Medical Research Council centres and is a founding member of the King's Health Partners academic health sciences centre, Francis Crick Institute and MedCity. It is a member of numerous academic organisations, including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, the Russell Group, and the "golden triangle" of elite English universities.

King's is known for its noted alumni and staff, including 12 Nobel laureates amongst its alumni and current and former faculty. The college performs highly in international rankings. In 2015 it ranked 19th in the world (5th in the UK and 7th in Europe) in the QS World University Rankings, and 27th in the world (7th in the UK and 8th in Europe) in the 2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In rankings produced by Times Higher Education based upon the results of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, King's was ranked 6th overall for "research power" and 7th for GPA. In a survey by The New York Times assessing the most valued graduates by business leaders, King's College London graduates ranked 22nd in the world and 5th in the UK. In the 2015 Global Employability University Survey of international recruiters, King's is ranked 43rd in the world and 7th in the UK.

Academics

Admissions

In 2005, the Sunday Times ranked King's as the 6th most difficult UK university to gain admission to. According to the 2015 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 30% of King's undergraduates come from independent schools.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that the university received 31,857 undergraduate applications and made 13,302 offers in 2014-15. This yielded an acceptance rate of 18.9% and an offer rate of 41.8%. The School of Medicine received 1,764 applications, only 39 offers were made yielding an offer rate of just 2.2%. Nursery & Midwifery, Physiotherapy and Clinical Dentistry had the lowest offer rates of 14%, 16% and 17% respectively.

Teaching

King's academic year runs from the last Monday in September to the first Friday in June. Different faculties and departments adopt different academic term structures. For example, the academic year of the Mathematics School and Department of War Studies is divided into three terms (Autumn, Spring and Summer terms); while the Faculty of Arts & Humanities academic year runs in two semesters.

Graduation

Graduation ceremonies are held in January and June or July, with ceremonies held in Southwark Cathedral for the School of Medicine and the Dental Institute and in theBarbican Centre for all other Schools. Since 2008 King's graduates have worn gowns designed by Vivienne Westwood.

Research

In 2013/14 King's had a total research income of £171.55 million, of which £47.64 million was from UK charitable bodies; £38.26 million from Research Councils; £32.97 million from UK central government, local authorities, health and hospital authorities; £21.38 million from EU government and other bodies; £17.09 million from overseas ex. EU; £13.11 million from UK industry, commerce and public corporations; and £1.11 million from other sources.

King's submitted a total of 1,369 staff across 27 units of assessment to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment (compared with 1,172 submitted to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008)). In the REF results 40% of King's submitted research was classified as 4*, 45% as 3*, 13% as 2* and 2% as 1*, giving an overall GPA of 3.23. In rankings produced by Times Higher Education based upon the REF results King's was ranked 6th overall for research power and 7th for GPA (compared to 11th and joint 22nd respectively in the equivalent rankings for the RAE 2008).

Medicine

King's claims to be the largest centre for healthcare education in Europe.  King's College London School of Medicine has over 2,000 undergraduate students, over 1,400 teachers, four main teaching hospitals – Guy's Hospital, King's College Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital and University Hospital Lewisham – and 17 associated district general hospitals. King's College London Dental Institute is the largest dental school in Europe. The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery is the oldest professional school of nursing in the world.

King's is a major centre for biomedical research. It is a founding member of King's Health Partners, one of the largest academic health sciences centres in Europe with a turnover of over £2 billion and approximately 25,000 employees. It also is home to six Medical Research Council centres, and is part of two of the twelve biomedical research centres established by the NHS in England – the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London, and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London.

The Drug Control Centre at King's was established in 1978 and is the only WADA accredited anti-doping laboratory in the UK and holds the official UK contract for running doping tests on UK athletes.  In 1997, it became the first International Olympic Committee accredited laboratory to meet the ISO/IEC 17025 quality standard. The centre was the anti-doping facility for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Source: Wikipedia