King's College (London)

King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. It is one of the oldest university-level institutions in England. In the late 20th century, King's grew through a series of mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology (1985), the Institute of Psychiatry (1997), the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals and the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (in 1998).

King's operates across five main campuses: the historic Strand Campus in central London, three other Thames-side campuses (Guy's, St Thomas' and Waterloo) nearby, and a campus in Denmark Hill in south London. It also has a presence in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, for professional military education, and in Newquay, Cornwall, which is where King's information service centre is based. The academic activities are organised into nine faculties, which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres, and research divisions. In 2023/24, King's reported total income of £1.271 billion, of which £256.9 million was from research grants and contracts. It has the fourth largest endowment of any university in the UK, and the largest of any in London. King's is the sixth-largest university in the UK by total enrolment and receives over 68,000 undergraduate applications per year.

King's is a member of a range of academic organisations including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the Russell Group. King's is home to the Medical Research Council's MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders and is a founding member of the King's Health Partners academic health sciences centre, Francis Crick Institute and MedCity. By total enrolment, it is the largest European centre for graduate and post-graduate medical teaching and biomedical research, including the world's first nursing school, the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery. King's is generally regarded as part of the "golden triangle" of universities located in and about Oxford, Cambridge and London. King's has typically enjoyed royal patronage by virtue of its foundation; King Charles III reaffirmed patronage in May 2024.

King's alumni and staff include 14 Nobel laureates; contributors to the discovery of DNA structure, Hepatitis C, the Hepatitis D genome, and the Higgs boson; pioneers of in-vitro fertilisation, stem cell/mammal cloning and the modern hospice movement; and key researchers advancing radar, radio, television and mobile phones. Alumni also include heads of states, governments and intergovernmental organisations; nineteen members of the current House of Commons, two Speakers of the House of Commons and thirteen members of the current House of Lords; and the recipients of three Oscars, three Grammys, one Emmy, one Golden Globe, and one Booker Prize.

History

Foundation

King's College, so named in recognition of the patronage of King George IV, was founded in 1829 (though the roots of King's medical school, St. Thomas, date back to the 16th century with recorded first teaching in 1561) in response to the theological controversy surrounding the founding of "London University" (which later became University College, London) in 1826.Cockburn, King, McDonnell (1969), pp. 345–359 London University was founded, with the backing of Utilitarians, Jews and Nonconformists, as a secular institution, intended to educate "the youth of our middling rich people between the ages of 15 or 16 and 20 or later" giving its nickname, "the godless college in Gower Street".Hibbert, Weinreb, Keay, Keay (2008), p. 958 The need for such an institution was a result of the religious and social nature of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which then educated solely the sons of wealthy Anglicans. The secular nature of London University gained disapproval, indeed, "the storms of opposition which raged around it threatened to crush every spark of vital energy which remained".MacIlwraith (1884), p. 32

The creation of King's College as a rival institution represented a Tory response to reaffirm the educational values of the established order.Thompson (1990), p. 5 More widely, King's was one of the first of a series of institutions which came about in the early nineteenth century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and great social changes in England following the Napoleonic Wars. By virtue of its foundation, King's enjoys the patronage of the monarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury as its visitor, and during the nineteenth century counted among its official governors the Lord Chancellor, Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Mayor of London.

Duel in Battersea Fields, 21 March 1829

The simultaneous support of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (who was also Prime Minister of the United Kingdom then), for an Anglican King's College London and the Roman Catholic Relief Act, which was to lead to the granting of almost full civil rights to Catholics, was challenged by George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea, in early 1829. Winchilsea and his supporters wished for King's to be subject to the Test Acts, like the universities of Oxford, where only members of the Church of England could matriculate, and Cambridge, where non-Anglicans could matriculate but not graduate, "Londoners who did study, for example in Oxford or Cambridge, had to be quite rich and also members of the Anglican Church." but this was not Wellington's intent.

Winchilsea and about 150 other contributors withdrew their support of King's College London in response to Wellington's support of Catholic emancipation. In a letter to Wellington, he accused the Duke to have in mind "insidious designs for the infringement of our liberty and the introduction of Popery into every department of the State".Holmes (2002), p. 275 The letter provoked a furious exchange of correspondence and Wellington accused Winchilsea of imputing him with "disgraceful and criminal motives" in setting up King's College London. When Winchilsea refused to retract the remarks, Wellington – by his own admission, "no advocate of duelling" and a virgin duellist – demanded satisfaction in a contest of arms: "I now call upon your lordship to give me that satisfaction for your conduct which a gentleman has a right to require, and which a gentleman never refuses to give."

The result was a duel in Battersea Fields on 21 March 1829. Winchilsea did not fire his pistol, a plan he and his second almost certainly decided upon before the duel; Wellington took aim and fired wide to the right. Accounts differ as to whether Wellington missed on purpose. Wellington, noted for his poor aim, claimed he did, other reports more sympathetic to Winchilsea claimed he had aimed to kill. Honour was saved and Winchilsea wrote Wellington an apology. Every year, "Duel Day" is commemorated on the first Thursday following March 21, featuring a range of events across King's, including reenactments.

19th century

King's opened in October 1831 with the cleric William Otter appointed as first principal and lecturer in divinity. The Archbishop of Canterbury presided over the opening ceremony, in which a sermon was given in the chapel by Charles James Blomfield, the Bishop of London, on the subject of combining religious instruction with intellectual culture. Despite the attempts to make King's Anglican-only, the initial prospectus permitted, "nonconformists of all sorts to enter the college freely".Hearnshaw (1929), p. 80 William Howley: the governors and the professors, except the linguists, were required to be members of the Church of England but the students did not,Hibbert, Weinreb, Keay, Keay (2008), p. 462 though attendance at chapel was compulsory.''Prospectus of King's College, London: academical year 1854–55'', p. 7

King's was divided into a senior department and a junior department, also known as King's College School, which was originally situated in the basement of the Strand Campus. The junior department started with 85 pupils and only three teachers, but quickly grew to 500 by 1841, outgrowing its facilities and leading it to relocate to Wimbledon in 1897 where it remains, though it is no longer associated with King's College London. Within the senior department teaching was divided into three courses: a general course comprised divinity, classical languages, mathematics, English literature and history; a medical course; and miscellaneous subjects, such as law, political economy and modern languages, which were not related to any systematic course of study at the time and depended for their continuance on the supply of occasional students. In 1833 the general course was reorganised leading to the award of the Associate of King's College (AKC), the first qualification issued by King's. The course, which concerns questions of ethics and theology, is still awarded to students and staff who take an optional three-year course alongside their studies.

The river frontage was completed in April 1835 at a cost of £7,100,Thompson (1986), p. 6 fulfilling a key stipulation required by King's College London securing the site from the Crown. Unlike those in the school, student numbers in the Senior department remained almost stationary during King's first five years of existence. During this time the medical school was blighted by inefficiency and the divided loyalties of the staff leading to a steady decline in attendance. One of the most important appointments was that of Charles Wheatstone as professor of Experimental Philosophy.

At the time, neither King's, "London University", nor the medical schools at the London hospitals had the authority to confer degrees. In 1835 the government announced that it would establish an examining board to grant degrees, with "London University" and King's both becoming affiliated colleges. This became the University of London in 1836, the former "London University" becoming ''University College, London'' (UCL). The first University of London degrees were awarded to King's College London students in 1839.

In 1840, King's opened its own hospital on Portugal Street near Lincoln's Inn Fields, an area composed of overcrowded rookeries characterised by poverty and disease. The governance of King's College Hospital was later transferred to the corporation of the hospital established by the King's College Hospital Act 1851. The hospital moved to new premises in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in 1913. The appointment in 1877 of Joseph Lister as professor of clinical surgery greatly benefited the medical school, and the introduction of Lister's antiseptic surgical methods gained the hospital an international reputation.

In 1845, King's established a Military Department to train officers for the Army and the British East India Company, and in 1846 a Theological Department to train Anglican priests. In 1855, King's pioneered evening classes in London; that King's granted students at the evening classes certificates of college attendance to enable them to sit University of London degree exams was cited as an example of the worthlessness of these certificates in the decision by the University of London to end the affiliated colleges system in 1858 and open their examinations to everybody.

The ( 45 & 46 Vict. c. xiii) amended the constitution. The act removed the proprietorial nature of King's, changing the name of the corporation from "The Governors and Proprietors of King's College, London" to "King's College London" and annulling the 1829 charter (although King's remained incorporated under that charter). The act also changed King's College London from a (technically) for-profit corporation to a non-profit one (no dividends had ever been paid out in over 50 years of operation) and extended the objects of King's to include the education of women. The Ladies' Department of King's College London was opened in Kensington Square in 1885, which later in 1902 became King's College Women's Department.

20th century

The (3 Edw. 7. c. xcii) abolished all remaining religious tests for staff, except within the Theological department. In 1910, King's was (with the exception of the Theological department) merged into the University of London under the ( 8 Edw. 7. c. xxxix), losing its legal independence.

During the First World War, the medical school was opened to women for the first time. From 1916 to 1921, the college's Department of Italian was headed by a woman, Linetta de Castelvecchio. The end of the war saw an influx of students, which strained existing facilities to the point where some classes were held in the Principal's house.

In World War II, the buildings of King's College London were used by the Auxiliary Fire Service with a number of King's staff, mainly those then known as college servants, serving as firewatchers. Parts of the Strand building, the quadrangle, and the roof of apse and stained glass windows of the chapel suffered bomb damage in the Blitz. During post-war reconstruction, the vaults beneath the quadrangle were replaced by a two-storey laboratory, which opened in 1952, for the departments of Physics and Civil and Electrical Engineering.

One of the most famous pieces of scientific research performed at King's were the crucial contributions to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, together with Raymond Gosling, Alex Stokes, Herbert Wilson, and other associates at the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics at King's.

Major reconstruction of King's began in 1966 following the publication of the Robbins Report on Higher Education. A new block facing the Strand designed by E. D. Jefferiss Mathews was opened in 1972. In 1980 King's regained its legal independence under a new Royal Charter. In 1993 King's, along with other large University of London colleges, gained direct access to government funding (which had previously been through the university) and the right to confer University of London degrees itself. This contributed to King's and the other large colleges being regarded as ''de facto'' universities in their own right.

King's College London underwent several mergers with other institutions in the late 20th century. These including the reincorporation in 1983 of the King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, which had become independent of King's College Hospital at the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948, mergers with
Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College in 1985, and the Institute of Psychiatry in 1997. In 1998 the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals merged with King's to form the GKT School of Medical Education. Also in 1998 Florence Nightingale's original training school for nurses merged with the King's Department of Nursing Studies as the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery. The same year King's acquired the former Public Record Office building on Chancery Lane, which opened in 2002.

21st century

In July 2006, King's College London was granted independent degree-awarding powers in its own right, as opposed to through the University of London, by the Privy Council. This power remained unexercised until 2007, when King's announced that all students starting courses from September 2007 onwards would be awarded degrees conferred by King's itself, rather than by the University of London. The new certificates however still make reference to the fact that King's is a constituent college of the University of London. The first King's degrees were awarded in summer 2008.

In April 2011, King's became a founding partner in the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation, subsequently renamed the Francis Crick Institute, committing £40 million to the project. The Chemistry department was reopened in 2011 following its closure in 2003. In February 2012, the Queen officially opened Somerset House East Wing.

In September 2014, King's College London opened King's College London Mathematics School, a free school sixth form located in Lambeth that specialises in mathematics. In October 2014, Ed Byrne replaced Rick Trainor as Principal of King's College London, the latter having served for 10 years. In December 2014, King's announced its plans to rebrand its name to 'King's London'. After concerns were raised by the students' union, a statement from the college later in December emphasised that there were no plans to change the legal name of King's, and said that the branding of 'King's London' was "designed to promote King's and its place in London and also the fact that we are one of the world's great universities in our own right". King's announced that the rebranding plans had been dropped in January 2015.

In 2015, King's acquired a 50-year lease for the Aldwych Quarter site incorporating the historic Bush House. It has been occupied since 2017. Bush House was opened as part of the Strand Campus by the Queen in 2019.

Campus

King's is based on five campuses in central London.

Strand Campus

The Strand Campus is the original campus of King's and is located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The campus is based around the Grade I listed original King's Building constructed for the college in 1831, designed by Sir Robert Smirke, adjacent to Somerset House and sharing its frontage along the River Thames, including the King's College London Chapel, redesigned in 1864 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The campus also includes buildings along the adjacent Surrey Street, the Strand Building and the east wing of Somerset House. Beyond this contiguous complex of buildings, the campus also includes Bush House on the opposite side of the Strand, the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, and the Maughan Library and etc.venues on Chancery Lane, law, natural and mathematical sciences, social science and public policy, and business, as well as the King's Foundation. The students' union runs the Shack café and the Vault bar in Bush House on the Strand Campus, and has two contact hubs on the campus, also in Bush House.

Guy's Campus

Guy's Campus is close to London Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames and is adjacent to Guy's Hospital. It is home to the faculty of life sciences and medicine (also at the Waterloo Campus), the dental institute, and the institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience (also at the Denmark Hill Campus).

Buildings include: the Henriette Raphael building, the Hodgkin building and Shepherd's House. The campus is also home to the Gordon Museum of Pathology and the Museum of Life Sciences (neither of which is open to the public), as well as the Chapel of Thomas Guy. The Students' Union runs Guy's Bar, Guy's Café and a contact hub on the Guy's Campus. The Great Dover Street Apartments and Wolfson House halls of residence are close to the campus.

The hospital and the campus are named after Thomas Guy, who established the hospital with money from his investments in the slave-trading South Sea Company. A statue of Thomas Guy, installed in 1734 and owned by the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation, stands outside the hospital, on the grounds of the university campus. This was boarded up in 2020, following the George Floyd protests, it was de-boarded for conservation work, with temporary interpretation added, in November 2022. Permanent interpretation was installed in November 2023.

Waterloo Campus

The Waterloo Campus is in Lambeth, across Waterloo Bridge from the Strand Campus and adjacent to the Southbank Centre. It has three main buildings: the James Clerk Maxwell Building, the Franklin–Wilkins Building (one of the largest university buildings in London) and the Stamford Street Apartments (student accommodation).

The campus is home to the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery and parts of the faculty of life sciences and medicine (also on Guy's Campus); the faculty of social science and public policy (also on the Strand Campus); and the London Dental Education Centre, part of the Dental Institute (also on the Guy's and Denmark Hill campuses). The students' union has a contact hub in the Franlin-Wilkins Building.

St Thomas' Campus

The St Thomas' Campus is located at St Thomas' Hospital, named after St Thomas Becket, in Lambeth, facing the Houses of Parliament across the Thames. It carries out continuing medical and dental training as well as housing the Florence Nightingale Museum, an independent charity.

Denmark Hill Campus

The Denmark Hill Campus is situated in Camberwell in Southwark. It is the home of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) and also houses parts of the dental institute and the faculty of medicine and life sciences. The students' union has a contact hub in the IoPPN.

Other sites

Halls of residence

King's has halls of residence across central London. With the exception of the Stamford Street Apartments on the Waterloo Campus, these are separate sites from the college's campuses.

Sports grounds

The college has two sports grounds, at New Malden and Honor Oak Park in London.

Shrivenham

Whilst not a formal campus, King's retains an academic presence and estate at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire. Through its Defence Studies Department, King's has delivered professional military training to much of the UK armed services through the Joint Services Command and Staff College since 2000 under contract to the Ministry of Defence.

Newquay

The King's Service Centre, established in 2015 to provide professional services and IT support to the university, is located in Newquay, Cornwall.

Organisation and administration

Governance

The office of "President and Principal of the University" is established by King's College London royal charter as "the Vice-Chancellor and chief academic and executive officer of the University" and the statutes require the president and principal to have the general responsibility to the council for "ensuring that the objects of the University are fulfilled and for maintaining and promoting the efficiency, discipline and good order of the University". The current president and principal, Shitij Kapur, uses the title "Vice-Chancellor and President". The other senior officers of the college include three senior vice presidents, covering the sectors of: academic; health and life science; and operations. There are also five vice presidents covering the areas of: finance (also the college's chief financial officer); education and student success; international, engagement and service; research and innovation; and people and talent.

The council is the supreme governing body of King's College London established under the charter and statutes, comprising up to 20 members. Its membership includes the President of King's College London Students' Union (KCLSU) as the student member; seven staff members (including the President and Principal); and 12 lay members who must not be employees of King's. It is supported by a number of standing committees. Christopher Geidt has been the chair of council since 2016.

The academic board is established under the charter as "the body responsible under delegated authority from the Council for the regulation of the academic work of the University in teaching and examining and in research". Under the college ordinances, they are the body responsible for the award of degrees and other academic distinctions of the university. The academic board is chaired by the vice-chancellor and president with ''ex officio'' members being the senior vice presidents, vice presidents, executive deans, the president and education vice presidents of the students' union, the dean for doctoral studies, and the Dean of King's College; 45 academic staff elected by the faculties; 3 teaching staff elected from the Centre for International Education & Languages; three members elected from the professional staff; and an elected student representative from each faculty.

The Dean of King's College London is established by the ordinances as being "responsible for ensuring that the College builds upon the Anglican tradition associated with its foundation and, in recognition of the multiethnic and international nature of its community, encourages and supports all its members of all beliefs and backgrounds" and has to be an ordained minister of the Church of England. They are also responsible for the academic direction of the Associateship of King's College and coordinate the college chaplaincy, and the Choir of King's College London, which includes a number of choral scholarships, and of encourage and foster vocations to the Church of England priesthood. The current dean is Ellen Clark-King. That the dean is an ordained person is unusual among British universities, but reflects King's foundation in the tradition of the Church of England in 1829.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was previously King's College London's visitor by right of office owing to the Anglican foundation of King's. Under the 2023 royal charter, the visitor is appointed by the monarch on the representation of the council of the university.

Faculties and departments

In the 19th century, King's College London had five departments: theological, general literature and science, applied sciences, medical, and military. The theological department provided studies in ecclesiastical history, pastoral theology and exegesis of the Bible. Languages and literature, history, law and jurisprudence, political economy, commerce, fencing, mathematics, zoology and natural history were taught within the department of general literature and science, and natural philosophy, geology, mineralogy and engineering-related subjects were taught within the department of applied sciences.

, King's comprises nine academic faculties: arts and humanities; business; dentistry, oral and craniofacial sciences; law; life sciences and medicine; natural, mathematical and engineering sciences; nursing, midwifery and palliative care; psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience; and social science and public policy.

Faculty of arts and humanities

The faculty of arts and humanities is based on the Strand Campus in the heart of central London, in the vicinity of many cultural institutions, and has established collaborations with many of these, including Shakespeare's Globe, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Royal Academy of Music. The faculty was formed in 1989 by the amalgamation of the faculties of arts, music and theology.

Faculty of dentistry, oral and craniofacial Sciences

The faculty of dentistry, oral and craniofacial sciences (formerly the dental institute) is the dental school of King's and focuses on understanding disease, enhancing health and restoring function. It is the successor of education carried out at Guy's Dental Hospital, the Royal Dental Hospital's London School of Dental Surgery, and King's College Hospital Dental School. These became a single institution in 1998 with the merger of the united medical and dental schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals with King's school of medicine and dentistry.

The history of dentistry education at the institutions that would eventually become the faculty started in
1799, when Joseph Fox gave a series of lectures on dental surgery at Guy's Hospital and was appointed dental surgeon in the same year. Thomas Bell succeeded Fox as dental surgeon either in 1817 or 1825. Frederick Newland-Pedley, who was appointed assistant dental surgeon at Guy's Hospital in 1885, advocated the establishment of a dental school within the hospital, and he flooded the two dental schools in London, the Metropolitan School of Dental Science and the London School of Dental Surgery, with patients to prove that a further hospital was needed. In December 1888, Guy's Hospital Dental School was established. Guy's Hospital Dental School was recognised as a school of the University of London in 1901. In the 1970s, since there was a decline in the demand for dental services, the Department of Health of the UK suggested that there should be a decrease in the number of dental undergraduate students as well as the duration of all courses. In response to the recommendations, Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surgery amalgamated with the Guy's Hospital Dental School of the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals on 1 August 1983.

The establishment of King's College Hospital Dental School was proposed by Viscount Hambleden at a Hospital Management Committee meeting on 12 April 1923. The dental school was opened on 12 November 1923 in King's College Hospital. Under the 1948 National Health Act, King's Medical and Dental School split from King's and became an independent school, but the school remerged with King's in 1983. The school further merged with the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in 1998.

Faculty of life sciences and medicine

The faculty of life sciences and medicine was created as a result of the merger of the school of medicine with the school of biomedical sciences in 2014.

There are two schools of education in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine: the GKT School of Medical Education is responsible for the medical education and training of students on the MBBS programme, and the school of bioscience education is responsible for the biomedical and health professions education and training. The faculty is divided into schools of basic and medical biosciences; biomedical engineering and imaging sciences; cancer and pharmaceutical science, cardiovascular medicine and sciences; immunology and microbial sciences; life course sciences; and population health sciences.

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a faculty and a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain, and to help identify new treatments of the diseases. The institute is the largest centre for research and postgraduate education in psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience in Europe. Originally established in 1924 as the Maudsley Hospital Medical School, the institute changed its name to the Institute of Psychiatry in 1948, merged with King's College London in 1997, and was renamed IoPPN in 2014.

Dickson Poon School of Law

The Dickson Poon School of Law is the law school of King's. Law has been taught at King's since 1831 and the faculty of laws was founded (in association with the London School of Economics) in 1909, becoming the school of law in 1991. The school includes various research centres and groups which serve as focal points for research activity.

Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences

The faculty includes the departments of chemistry, engineering, informatics, mathematics, and physics.

The teaching of experimental physics at King's was the first in England and professors of experimental physics have included James Clerk Maxwell, Harold A. Wilson (physicist), Harold A. Wilson, Charles Glover Barkla, Owen Willans Richardson, Sir Owen Richardson, Sir Edward Appleton and Charles Drummond Ellis, Sir Charles Ellis, three of whom became Nobel laureates.

John Frederic Daniell was the first professor of chemistry at King's and established the first chemical laboratory in 1834. Chemistry was originally part of the medical department and became a separate department in 1958; this closed in 2003 due to a decline in student numbers and reduced funding. The department was reestablished in 2012.

Teaching of engineering at King's was established in 1838, a year after Durham, making it the second school of engineering established in the United Kingdom. The department of engineering was the largest engineering school in the UK in 1893. The division of engineering was closed in 2013, with the current department of engineering being established in 2019.

Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care

The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care is a school for nurses and midwives. It also conducts nursing research and provides continuing professional development and postgraduate programmes. Formerly known as the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses, the faculty was established by Florence Nightingale in 1860, and was the first nursing school in the world to be continuously connected to a fully serving hospital and medical school.

The Nightingale Training School amalgamated with the Olive Haydon School of Midwifery and the Thomas Guy and Lewisham School of Nursing between 1991 and 1993 to form the Nightingale College of Health, which became part of King's in 1993. In 2017 it merged with the Cicely Saunders Institute, a centre for research and education in palliative care, to become the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care.

Faculty of social science and public policy

The faculty of social science and public policy contains the schools of
politics and economics; School of Education, Communication and Society, education, communication and society; global affairs; security studies; the international school for government; and the policy institute.

The Department of War Studies, King's College London, department of war studies, within the school of security studies, is unique in the UK and is supported by research facilities such as the King's Centre for Strategic Communications, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives and the King's Centre for Military Health Research.

King's Business School

King's Business School was established in 1989. In 2017 it became a faculty of the college as King's Business School and moved into Bush House. From 2023, it has held triple accreditation from the Association of MBAs, the EFMD Quality Improvement System and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

Finances

In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2024, King's had a total income of £1.271 billion (2022/23 – £1.230 million) and total expenditure of £944 million (2022/23 – £1.102 billion). Key sources of income included £630.5 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2022/23 – £607.8 million), £144.9 million from funding body grants (2022/23 – £148.3 million), £256.9 million from research grants and contracts (2022/23 – £236.3 million), £26.7 million from investment income (2022/23 – £18 million) and £23.7 million from donations and endowments (2022/23 – £28.9 million).

At year end, King's had endowments of £324.8 million (2022/23 – £301 million) and total net assets of £1.671 billion (2022/23 – £1.323 billion). It holds the List of UK universities by endowment, fourth-largest endowment of any university in the UK behind only Oxford, Cambridge and University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh.

Coat of arms

The coat of arms displayed on the King's College London charter is that of George IV. The shield depicts the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, royal coat of arms together with an inescutcheon of the House of Hanover, while the supporters embody King's motto of '. No correspondence is believed to have survived regarding the choice of this coat of arms, either in King's archives or at the College of Arms, and a variety of unofficial adaptations were used. The college was fined by London County Council in 1911 for using these arms without a licence. The current arms came into use in October 1989 but were not formally granted until 1995.
These were developed following the mergers with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College in 1985 and incorporate aspects of their heraldry. The official coat of arms, in Blazon, heraldic terminology, is:

Arms:

''Or on a Pale Azure between two Lions rampant respectant Gules an Anchor Gold ensigned by a Royal Crown proper on a Chief Argent an Ancient Lamp proper inflamed Gold between two Blazing Hearths also proper''.

The crest and supporters:

''On a Helm with a Wreath Or and Azure Upon a Book proper rising from a Coronet Or the rim set with jewels two Azure (one manifest) four Vert (two manifest) and two Gules a demi Lion Gules holding a Rod of Dexter a female figure habited Azure the cloak lined coif and sleeves Argent holding in the exterior hand a Lond Cross botony Gold and sinister a male figure the Long Coat Azure trimmed with Sable proper shirt Argent holding in the interior hand a Book proper''.

Coats of arms of the medical schools

Although the St Thomas's Hospital Medical School and Guy's Medical School became legal bodies separate from St Thomas' Hospital and Guy's Hospital in 1948, the tradition of using the hospitals' shields and coat of arms continues today.

In 1949, St Thomas's Hospital Medical School was granted its own coat of arms. However, the St Thomas' Hospital coat of arms has still been used. Guy's Medical School proposed to apply for its own coat of arms after separating from Guy's Hospital, yet the school decided to continue to use Guy's Hospital's arms in 1954. The two medical schools merged in 1982 and became the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals (UMDS). Simon Argles, secretary of UMDS, said that because of the name of the medical school it was more appropriate to use the hospital's coat of arms.

UMDS merged with King's College Hospital to become GKT School of Medical Education, Guy's, King's and St Thomas' School of Medicine in 1998. The shields of Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals are used in conjunction with King's shield in the medical schools' publications and graduation materials.

Affiliations and partnerships

King's College London is a member institution and was one of the two founding colleges of the federal University of London. In 1998, King's joined the Russell Group, an association of 24 public research universities established in 1994. King's is also a member of the Institutional Network of the Universities from the Capitals of Europe (UNICA), a network of higher education institutions based in European capital cities, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, the Circle U European Higher Education Area#European Universities initiative, European University alliance, the Association of Commonwealth Universities (EUA) and Universities UK.

King's is typically regarded as part of the "golden triangle", a grouping of research universities located in the English cities of Cambridge, Oxford and London that generally also includes the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Imperial College London, the London School of Economics, and University College London.

King's College London is also a part of King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre comprises Guy's Hospital, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London itself. King's is a participant and one of the founding members of the Francis Crick Institute. Furthermore, launched in 2014, MedCity is the collaboration between King's and the other two main science universities in London, Imperial College and University College London.

In 2016, King's College London, together with Arizona State University and University of New South Wales, formed the PLuS Alliance, an international university alliance to address global challenges. King's was also a founding member of FutureLearn, a massive open online course platform established in December 2012.

King's offers joint degrees with many universities and other institutions, including Columbia University, University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, University of Paris I, University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, Royal Academy of Music, British Library, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery and British Museum.

In the field of mathematics, King's College London has a joint venture with Imperial College London and University College London running the London School of Geometry and Number Theory (LSGNT), which is an EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT). The LSGNT offers a wide range of 4-year PhD research projects in different aspects of number theory, geometry and topology.

Another partnership King's College London has with both Imperial College London and University College London is the field of Nanotechnology where all 3 universities jointly run the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN). LCN is a multidisciplinary research centre in physical and biomedical nanotechnology focused on exploitation and commercialisation of research generated in the relevant fields, established in 2003, which King's joined in 2018.

King's College London joined the Science and Engineering South, SES engineering and physical sciences research alliance in 2016, which includes the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Southampton, Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London, and University College London as members. King's College London is also a member of the Thomas Young Centre, an alliance of London research groups working on the theory and simulation of materials, along with Imperial College London, University College London and Queen Mary University of London.

The university is also a member of the Screen Studies Group, London, University of London Screen Studies Group with other institutions from the University of London.

Academic profile

Admissions

King's had the 18th highest average entry qualification for undergraduates of any UK university in 2022, with new students averaging 168 UCAS points. In 2022, the university gave offers of admission to 39.3% of its applicants, the 8th lowest across the country.

Teaching

King's academic year runs from the last Monday in September to the first Friday in June. Different faculties and departments adopt different academic term structures. For example, the academic year of the Mathematics School and Department of War Studies is divided into three terms (Autumn, Spring and Summer terms); while the Faculty of Arts & Humanities academic year runs in two semesters.

Graduation

Graduation ceremonies are held in January (winter) and June or July (summer), with ceremonies for non-medical students held at the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre, near the Waterloo Campus. Ceremonies were held at the Royal Albert Hall until 1992 and then at the Barbican Centre until 2018.

Owing to St Thomas's Medical School roots that could be traced to St Mary Overie Priory, students from the GKT School of Medical Education and Faculty of Dental, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences graduate from Southwark Cathedral adjacent to Guy's Campus.

After being granted the power to award its own degrees separately from the University of London in 2006, graduates began wearing King's College London academic dress in 2008. King's graduates have since worn gowns designed by Vivienne Westwood.

Research

In 2023/24 King's had a total research income of £256.9 million, of which £69.5 million came from research councils; £57.2 million from the UK central government; £14.6 million from UK industry; £58.1 million from UK charitable bodies; £25.3 million from EU sources; £32.2 million from other sources.

Following the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assessed the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, King's was ranked 9th by GPA and 6th for research power by ''Times Higher Education''.

Medicine

Medical research at King's College London is spread across multiple faculties, particularly the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, and the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine.

King's claims to be the largest centre for healthcare education in Europe. The Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine has three main teaching hospitals – Guy's Hospital, King's College Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital – and a branch campus in Portsmouth run in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth. King's College London Dental Institute was the largest dental school in Europe . The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery, which became part of King's in 1993, is the oldest professional school of nursing in the world.

King's is a major centre for biomedical research. It is a founding member of King's Health Partners, one of the largest academic health sciences centres in Europe with a turnover of over £2 billion and approximately 25,000 employees. It also is home to the Medical Research Council's MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and is part of two of the twelve biomedical research centres established by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in England – the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London, and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London.

The Drug Control Centre at King's was established in 1978 and is the only World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA accredited anti-doping laboratory in the UK and holds the official UK contract for running doping (sport), doping tests on UK athletes. In 1997, it became the first International Olympic Committee accredited laboratory to meet the ISO/IEC 17025 quality standard. The centre was the anti-doping facility for the 2012 Summer Olympics, London 2012 Olympic and 2012 Summer Paralympics, Paralympic Games.

Libraries

Maughan Library

The Maughan Library is King's largest library and is housed in the Listed building, Grade II* listed 19th century Gothic Revival architecture, gothic revival former Public Record Office building designed by James Pennethorne, Sir James Pennethorne, situated on Chancery Lane

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