Here's a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial.
Best practice in animal research
In a world in which animals are still used in scientific research, Imperial has become a leader in using the 3Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement of the use of animals in research) to challenge whether their use is essential, and ensure an ethical approach if it is.
Following the launch of our 10-year Culture of Care plan in June, we have now developed the Imperial 3RsHub website, funded by the UKRI Enhancing Research Culture.
This resource centre for the Imperial community and beyond features best practice examples and resources to help students understand the ethics and regulations around animal research. There are also training videos to help staff refine research applications.
Dr Bryn Owen, senior lecturer in endocrinology and Investigative Medicine and Chair of the 3Rs Advisory Group, said: "Our ethical animal research and 3Rs activities are world-leading, and now we have a platform to showcase this excellence. Understanding animal research is essential for an informed public debate, and I would encourage everyone in our community to have a look at our new e-module on the topic, which is hosted on the 3Rs Hub website."
Global Challenge Lab
Students from around the world have come together to work on solutions for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals of creating sustainable cities and effective climate action.
Teams containing students from more than 20 universities took part in the Global Challenge Lab this year – a programme run by Imperial Enterprise Lab, the Technical University of Munich, and Tsinghua University's x-lab to encourage international collaboration.
The programme brings together students and recent alumni for two weeks of entrepreneurship workshops, guest speakers, and mentoring to help them develop innovative ideas to solve global challenges.
This year's winning teams were:
- NaviBuddy – an all-in-one interactive AI personal assistant built to assist the visually impaired with seamless navigation.
- Biocentric – a project to transform grape pomace, a winemaking by-product, into medical-grade polymers to reduce single use plastic.
- Green Cloud – an advanced solution for sustainable computer workload routing to cut the carbon footprint of global cloud computing.
