Season's greetings and Happy New Year from everyone at Queen Mary

2012 was an incredible year for Queen Mary, and we expect 2013 to be even better!
There's never been a better time to study at Queen Mary. Here's why:

Excellent reputation

• In 2012, we joined the Russell Group of leading UK universities. As a graduate of a Russell Group university, you’ll be highly prized by graduate employers.
• We are consistently in the top 10 per cent of universities for graduate starting salaries in the UK (The Sunday Times University Guide).

Inspiring teaching

• Our academics embrace innovative teaching methods and receive national awards for their teaching. In 2012, Dr Peter Howarth of the School of English and Drama was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship, a highly prestigious award recognising exceptional teaching. This brings the total number awarded to Queen Mary staff to nine, making us the most successful college in the University of London since we joined the scheme in 2006.
• In the 2012 National Student Survey, 87 per cent of our students said they were satisfied with their time here – the best among the Russell Group universities in London.

World-class research in 2012

• Our academics' world-leading research advances academic knowledge and makes an important contribution to society. We played a key role in 2012's most exciting scientific development, the discovery of the Higgs boson, and won Research Project of the Year in the Times Higher Education Awards for our work on developing a new screening test to detect the virus that causes cervical cancer.
• We also published major new research highlighting the dangers of excessive weight gain in pregnancy; showed that the benefits of breast cancer screening outweigh the harms caused by over-diagnosis; continued our pioneering work around the London Living Wage; and demonstrated how geographic profiling – a technique traditionally used by criminologists to track down the home of serial criminals – could be used to predict how diseases or invasive species will spread.

League table recognition

• In the Guardian's 2013 University Guide, seven Queen Mary subject areas appeared in the top 10, including law, medicine, dentistry, materials science, English, film studies and geography, with drama coming top in the UK.
• In 2012, we were placed among the leading 150 universities in the world by The Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World University Rankings.

Buzzing location

• The area around our campus is one of the most stimulating in London, just a short walk from Brick Lane, Shoreditch and the Olympic Park, and close to the City and Canary Wharf.
• From the spring of 2014, you will be able to use the fantastic sports facilities at the Olympic Park, so you can swim in the same pool that Michael Phelps achieved his record haul of Olympic golds.

Innovative partnerships 

• We have innovative partnerships with like-minded universities in the UK and overseas. In 2012, we teamed up with the University of Warwick to share our talents in key areas of research and teaching. We’re planning to host cultural and literary festivals together in 2013.
• Our jointly run telecommunications programmes with the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications opened to students from the UK in 2012. We also formed a new partnership with Nanchang University, creating an opportunity to spend a summer in China.