King's College London
King's is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London with 13,800 undergraduate students and some 5,300 postgraduates in nine schools of study. IP Group signed its partnership with King’s in May 2003.
King’s College London is in the top group of universities for research earnings with income from grants and contracts of more than £101 million (2004-05) and has an annual turnover of £364 million.
King’s is a member of the Russell Group, a coalition of the UK's major research-based universities. Twenty-four of the College’s subject-areas were awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality in the last research assessment exercise, demonstrating excellence at an international level.
Externally-funded research forms a significant part of the College's activity, accounting for almost 1/3 of its total income. In the 2003/04 financial year, King's income from external research projects was £99 million. In the last financial year King's had the sixth highest research income among British universities.
Research at the university is weighted heavily towards life science and King’s has a long history of prestigious life science research. It was at King’s that Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin were able to provide the crucial X-ray diffraction data for James Watson and Francis Crick to construct their double helix model for DNA. Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery was based at King’s, as were Hodgkins, Addison and Bright. A total of seven members of KCL staff have won the Nobel Prize - including Sir James Black OM for his work on heart drugs. King’s recently received a significant donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
