News from Imperial: Faculty of Medicine celebrates 25th Anniversary with Staff Awards

By Roxy Hughes and Lucie Gibson, Collaborative Partnerships Officers, Imperial College London

In 2022, Imperial College London’s Faculty of Medicine celebrated its silver jubilee. The Faculty of Medicine was formed in 1997 following the merger of west London medical schools (St Mary’s, Charing Cross and Westminster) and postgraduate institutions (Royal Postgraduate Medical School and the National Heart and Lung Institute).

As part of the celebrations, the faculty hosted an Awards Evening on Thursday, 19 January 2023. Current and former staff from across the faculty were recognised with nominations, which celebrated education, research, community and culture. Imperial President, Professor Hugh Brady opened the event, observing that the Faculty is “among the very best in the world”:

“Whether that is rankings, quality of research outputs, quality of graduates, most recently the Research Excellence Framework, the Biomedical Research Council or the influence you are all having in forming our newest graduates who are populating our healthcare and generating research that is literally changing practice which we saw during Covid.”

The LKCMedicine Development Team were nominated for an Outstanding Leadership in Education Award in recognition of the successful international collaboration between NTU and Imperial. The Dean of Imperial’s Faculty of Medicine, Professor Jonathan Weber describes LKCMedicine as one of the greatest developments over the last 25 years in an interview to celebrate the 25th Anniversary.

“The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine awards a joint Imperial/NTU MBBS degree, and this new school has already achieved the highest placing in the international league tables of all new medical schools," he said.

Professor Jonathan Weber at the 25th Anniversary Awards Event

 Among the invited nominees was Professor Jenny Higham. Professor Higham was instrumental in the establishment of LKCMedicine, serving as LKCMedicine's Senior Vice-Dean (2013-15). The Professor Jenny Higham Collaboration Grant was established in recognition of Professor Higham’s strong desire to support cross-pollination and exchange of ideas between LKCMedicine and Imperial College School of Medicine. During the five-year period, the Grant funded 26 joint collaborative student projects. A total of 127 students from Imperial and LKCMedicine have been involved in a project that received funding between 2017 and 2021.

LKCMedicine’s former Vice-Dean for Education, Professor Naomi Low-Beer was also nominated for Outstanding Leadership in Education. Professor Low-Beer had a lead role in curriculum design and implementation of the MBBS at LKCMedicine.

The Imperial and LKCMedicine Transform MedEd Conference Team was recognised with a nomination for Outstanding Education Support. In an excerpt from the nomination, the team were described as “imaginative and inventive in their championing of medical education" and "their efforts have had a global impact.”

 The jointly-organised Transform MedEd conference took place in London on 11 and 12 November 2022. The event brought together nearly 400 delegates from around the world, both in person and online, to engage in lively debate, thought-provoking talks and perspective-shifting workshops across a packed two days.

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive across the board, with lots of new ideas and reflections to help the Imperial and LKCMedicine team jointly plan the next programme of online events via the Digital Transform MedEd series.

Conference highlights can be viewed here.