Olympic
Park
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a purpose-built testbed for innovation in Stratford in east London, home to University College London’s brand new interdisciplinary UCL East campus, which lies at the heart of 535,000m2 of academic, cultural and enterprise led institutions, flexible workspaces, social spaces, venues and world-leading sports facilities.
Olympic Park is a magnet for investment and development as London’s centre of gravity shifts East and unlocks the potential of this fastest growing area of the capital with it richly diverse and young demographic.
Collaboration across institutions and industries is supported by the SHIFT innovation district partnership, aimed at building healthier populations in healthier cities that work for the planet, incubating ideas and development, driving tech solutions and together accelerating market adoption.
SHIFT and its founding partners UCL, UAL, Loughborough University, Here East, Lendlease, Plexal and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) are setting the standard for sustainable cities worldwide.
The UCL East campus offers more than a dozen multidisciplinary research centres and labs focusing on global health, assistive technology, the manufacture and commercialisation of stem cell and gene therapies, robotics, sensor systems, materials discovery, ecology, the decarbonisation of transport and fair finance.
Ranked 5th in the world for public health research, UCL has launched the world’s first business school dedicated to health and healthcare management; the UCL Global Business School for Health reimagines the sector, unravels challenges from a business perspective and questions the status quo for public good.
UCL’s Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub), a legacy of the London 2012 Paralympic Games, is an academic research and practice centre operational in 60 countries, with more than 70 partners; it is the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s first Global Collaborating Centre on Assistive Technology and since launching in 2016 the Hub’s work has reached more than 34 million people.
UCL test labs at Here East on Olympic Park support breakthroughs in engineering, robotics and the built environment, co-sited with innovators, disruptors and start-ups visionaries and like-minded people to share – and participate – in the making of game-changing innovations.
Olympic Park is located close to Canary Wharf’s upcoming, state-of-the-art health and life science district, offering the potential for new collaborations and partnerships.
Key players
Facilities & infrastructure
UCL East’s One Pool Street base offers multidisciplinary research labs and studios exploring ecology, technology, robotics, urbanism, culture, and heritage, while Marshgate provides eight floors of hi-tech, cross-disciplinary research labs, teaching areas, fabrication workshops, collaboration spaces and a UCL Institute of Making.
UCL East’s flagship Marshgate base includes:
- 1,378 m2 workshop spaces
- 1,217 m2 teaching laboratories
- 2,548 m2 research laboratories
- 468 m2 of biological containment level 2 space (microbial & mammalian)
- 900 m2 of specialist electrochemical testing facilities
- 100 m2 specialist -50 oC Dew point Battery Dry Room
Shaping the future of manufacturing, the UCL Manufacturing Futures Laboratory offers world-class research expertise, laboratories and technologies such as 3D printing, synthetic biology and intensified processing to co-create the next generation of sustainable manufacturing technologies through a distinctive interdisciplinary approach.
Additional information
UCL is committed to creating opportunities and skills pathways for all Londoners, including apprenticeships. Working with its East Bank partners and Workwhile, an agreement is in place to transfer up to 25% of apprenticeship levy funding to cover training costs for SMEs across the four Olympic boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. The programme aims to empower 200 local employers through access to free workforce development, training and financial support
UCL East London Scholarships cover tuition fees and maintenance for various postgraduate taught courses and are awarded on the basis of financial need to applicants with links to the boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.
UCL Engineering Foundation Year is for people of all ages who aspire to become an engineer but do not meet the standard entry requirements for UCL’s undergraduate degrees and those who may have faced challenges or obstacles to their education and learning. Applicants with industry experience and vocational qualifications are welcome to apply.
MORE PLACES
White City Innovation District
