The Queen Mary Objective

Queen Mary, University of London will build on its distinctive position as a leading research-based higher education institution with a strong commitment to engagement in its London location, to be fully established by 2015 within the top ten universities in the UK on the basis of objective and widely respected criteria.

We will achieve this through:

The highest standards of research, as judged by international comparators, in a broad range of subject areas
The provision of the finest possible education to our undergraduate and postgraduate students, located both within and outside the UK
Commitment to the idea of the university as a community of scholars, mutually supportive and working both to further knowledge creation and benefit wider society.

Strategic Aim 1

To contribute to the body of human knowledge by performing research that is judged to be uniformly of international quality and that includes contributions that are internationally leading. This research will be both within and across traditional academic disciplines and will, in sum, represent contributions across a broad intellectual spectrum, including medicine and dentistry, the life and physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and technology, the social sciences, and the arts and humanities.

We will achieve this aim by adopting the following approaches:

Maintaining a commitment to conduct research across a broad intellectual spectrum that encompasses human medicine, the life and physical sciences, engineering, social sciences, arts and humanities.
Notwithstanding this commitment to breadth, identifying and investing selectively in areas of research strength, noting that these may transcend traditional academic disciplines.
Fostering research activities in areas (such as the life sciences, the digital economy, etc) that cross Faculty and School divisions.
Improving internal communication channels to encourage and facilitate collaborative research.
Increasing our research power (quality times volume) in those areas where the RAE 2008 revealed a marked discrepancy between a high quality ranking and a low power ranking.
Ensuring that the recruitment of academic staff with research responsibilities focuses exclusively on those with a record of exceptional achievement or with extraordinary potential.
Extending our network of international collaborations, recognising that the most productive research interactions are those established by the individuals directly concerned.
Increasing the proportion of our research output that is delivered via mechanisms of high impact, such as publication in the most prestigious journals.

Strategic Aim 2

To disseminate knowledge through the presentation of inspirational and authoritative teaching programmes to a diverse constituency of talented undergraduate and postgraduate students; through the delivery of bespoke professional courses at postgraduate level; by the translation of the outcomes of our research to the benefit of our society and economy; by public engagement with our academic expertise; and by providing leadership in areas of public interest.

We will achieve this aim by:

Making available the highest quality undergraduate education to the most talented students, through:

provision of discipline-specific understanding and skills
promotion of intellectual breadth
promotion of core values of citizenship, in local, national and international contexts
application of innovative educational methods and materials
development of agreed graduate attributes
programmes that will:
- be designed for the most talented students in their respective subjects
- be fully informed by recent research, performed within Queen Mary and elsewhere
- embed diverse mechanisms of programme delivery, notably e-learning
- embrace, where appropriate, joint working with international partners
- few in number but substantial in significance
- prepare students explicitly for the professional and personal challenges that they will face after graduation

Providing outstanding taught postgraduate education to outstanding students, in order to:

equip them to pursue careers requiring more specialist and advanced skills than achieved at first degree level
satisfy the requirements of individuals seeking to advance their skills to match the demands of their current occupations: this will require the establishment of close relationships with organisations in the private, public and third sectors