Category: College News & Updates

Applications open: Imperial As One Media Academy 2026 (deadline: 24 March)

Applications are now open for the 2026 Imperial As One Media Academy. This is an award-winning communications training programme for Black and minority ethnic researchers, academics and PhD students who remain underrepresented in the media and wider public sphere. Funded by Research England, it is designed to build confidence and skills in how to share your research and expertise with wider audiences.

Over six interactive workshops, participants gain practical skills in media engagement, public engagement, social media, podcasts, policy engagement and more. As well as benefitting from small-group, supportive learning designed specifically for ethnically minoritised researchers, you will be taught by inspiring expert trainers and get to hear from guest speakers including science content creator and social media star Big Manny.

To date, the Media Academy has trained over 130 researchers from Imperial College London, Francis Crick Institute and the Institute of Cancer Research. Graduates have gone on to feature in national and international media outlets, appear on podcasts, write blogs and opinion pieces and speak at parliamentary events.

100% of participants say they would recommend the programme but places are limited. You can hear more from our graduates and programme organisers in this video

Find out more and apply now.

WHEN Equality Initiative for Black Women at Imperial (sign up by 31 March)

Black Women at Imperial is a new partnership with WHEN Equality for a new initiative to strengthen the career progression of Black women across the university.

This initiative will:

  • Help Black women across the university connect with each other.
  • Give clearer guidance on what’s needed to progress their careers.
  • Provide anonymous, evidence-based insights to help shape future university actions.

Open to all female staff or PhD students who identify as Black or of Black heritage

Sign up to the mailing list to find out more and take part

Parents and Carers network and The Benefits Corner Teams Channels

Two brand‑new Teams channels, The Benefits Corner and the Parents and Carers Network, are officially live!

These spaces have been created to help the network stay more connected and to make it easier for you to find and share the information that matters. Their purpose is to:

  • Strengthen two‑way communication with colleagues
  • Centralise access to all the benefits, resources, and events available to you
  • Build a supportive community, where we can help each other and stay up to date with what’s on offer

Whether you’re looking to explore our full range of benefits or hoping to connect with fellow parents and carers, these channels are here to make that simpler and more engaging.

To join the channels, please complete the short forms below:

Estranged Students Support Group (25 Feb, 25 Mar, 29 Apr, 20 May)

Estranged Students Support Group (co-led by Underrepresented Student Support Team and Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service)

When? 25 February, 25 March, 29 April, 20 May, 1-2pm

Where? South Ken Campus, Chemistry Building, Level 8

What? A confidential space for students who are estranged from both parents to meet others in similar situations to share their experiences of studying without parental support.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/200486/estranged-students-support-group/

Access to Food Banks – Advice Service & Working-Class Network

Our Advice Service and Working-Class Network are working collaboratively to ensure all students at Imperial College experiencing short term financial hardship have access to food banks across the UK.

If you’re struggling to afford food, especially given the current cost of living crisis, you can now reach out to our Advice Service who will be able to issue an e-voucher for your local  The Trussell Trust food bank.

A typical food parcel may contain long life milk, pasta, tinned vegetables and fruit, tea or coffee, biscuits, and soup. If you cannot access your nearest food bank, delivery may be available although not guaranteed.

The Advice Service and Working-Class Network will also be able to signpost you to the relevant long term financial support services at Imperial College to help you get back on your feet. All requests are strictly confidential.

Please remember you are not alone and it’s okay to reach out for a bit of extra support – rising living costs are affecting students across the UK. We are here to ensure that you always have access to food and that you are not disadvantaged in your studies because of a lack of essentials.

How it works

  1. Fill out this form from the Advice Service
  2. The Advice service will send you an e-voucher
  3. You can pick up your parcel at your local Trussell Trust Food bank. You can find the locations here
  4. For further financial assistance, please reach out to Student Finance Support Team

New Doctoral Theses: access and alerts

Looking for Imperial theses? Explore and download theses via the Library’s guide:

Stay updated with Spiral

  • Imperial users can subscribe to collections (e.g., departmental PhD theses) and receive daily, weekly, or monthly digests of newly added items.
  • Log in with College credentials to subscribe.
  • External users can follow updates via RSS for the same collections.

How to subscribe (Imperial users)

  1. Go to Spiral: https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk
  2. Open the collection you want to follow (e.g., “Physics PhD theses”).
  3. Click “Subscribe” and choose your preferred frequency.
  4. Manage your preferences here: https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/subscriptions

Introducing dAIsy – Imperial’s New GenAI workspace

dAIsy is Imperial’s new Generative AI platform, designed to give you safe, easy access to multiple AI models (such as GPT, Claude, Deepseek, and others) through a single interface.

dAIsy is built to support teaching, learning, and research while ensuring data protection and institutional compliance.

Why use dAIsy?

  • Private and secure – your data stays protected. All your prompts and chat history are stored securely in Imperial’s cloud.
  • Build your own agents – You can define instructions or behaviours suited to your specific needs.
  • Advanced developer role available on request – if you want to go deeper.

Imperial offers licensed AI models to promote equitable access and, alongside Microsoft Copilot, dAIsy supports our commitment to harnessing AI’s transformative potential responsibly and effectively.

Further support

Help to shape the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service

Give your views on the workshops, groups, and courses currently on offer from the Student Counselling Mental Health Advice Service. Your feedback will help to ensure services are relevant, inclusive, and accessible to all students.

The team are especially interested in hearing from those of you who have not yet attended any sessions.

Complete the two-minute survey

Establishing the Imperial IBD Research Community – Join Us!

Are you a researcher, engineer, or clinician working on or interested in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) research? If you’re based at Imperial, Imperial NHS, or St Mark’s Hospital, we’re building an IBD research community to foster collaborations, support grant applications, and facilitate knowledge sharing and translation across all departments, career stages, and backgrounds.

Please take a moment to help us map this network by completing this short form: Join the IBD Research Community.

Save the Date for Our First Networking Event

📅 When: 24th April, 16:00
📍 Where: Hammersmith Campus

Let us know if you’ll be attending by filling out the form by 21st February, so we can secure the right venue size.

Join the new Viva Engage channel: Measuring Visibility and Impact

Join the new Viva Engage channel: Measuring Visibility and Impact

Scholarly Communications Management team has created a new Viva Engage community channel, Measuring Visibility and Impact to share insights and updates and invite discussion and collaboration on the various tools that imperial subscribes to. Tips and guidance on responsible use of metrics will also be shared.

Imperial subscribes to a number of powerful tools (e.g. Altmetric for tracking mentions of research publications on social media and news and Overton for monitoring citations on policy documents), but many staff and students are either unaware of these sources or unsure how to use them effectively. Through the Measuring Visibility and Impact channel, we aim to bridge this gap by advertising the tools, sharing updates about them, interesting case studies and organising training sessions to equip you to work with them.

The research analytics products allow you to:

  • track academic and societal impact of research publications, not only journal articles but other types of outputs such as reports, theses or preprints,
  • move away from journal-based metrics and h-index,
  • better communicate research results and increase visibility,
  • help you prepare job applications, narrative CVs, grant applications and REF submissions,
  • understand the latest research trends and key research areas in different disciplines,
  • monitor research performance of research groups, departments, faculties or institutions.

The community channel will support Imperial’s commitment to the responsible use of metrics by promoting best practice, fostering awareness, and keeping you updated about initiatives and opportunities. The channel will serve the ultimate objective of building a healthy research culture at Imperial by helping us break out of the dysfunctional culture of publish-or-perish.

Please join the Measuring Visibility and Impact community channel on Viva Engage and share this message with your contacts who might be interested.