News archive 2005

King’s consortium wins inaugural EU award

22 Dec 2004, PR 81/04

An e-Learning project led by the Department of Medical Engineering and Physics at the School of Medicine in King’s College has been awarded one of the first ever Leonardo da Vinci Awards for excellence in vocational education and training by the EU Commission.

EMIT (European Medical Imaging Technology), a consortium of universities and hospitals from Sweden, France, Italy and the UK won the award for its pioneering work in developing Europe’s first structured e-Learning programmes for training and education in ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging technology.

Leonardo da Vinci is the EU’s action programme on vocational education and training designed to promote transnational cooperation. The awards were introduced this year to celebrate successful initiatives and have already been described by EU ministers as the future ‘Oscars’ for education.

EMIT was chosen as one of three award-winners from a shortlist of 32 projects across Europe identified by Leonardo da Vinci National Agencies as the very best examples of vocational and educational training. Its e-Learning materials were described by the assessors as “unmatched in their innovation, breadth and depth.”

The EMIT team, led by Dr Slavik Tabakov, Programme Director at the Department of Medical Engineering and Physics who coordinated the project, received the award at a special gala ceremony in Maastricht on 15 December 2004, also attended by then-Education Minister Charles Clarke.

“This prestigious award is the crown of ten years hard work in pioneering and developing these unique e-Learning materials which are now used in hundreds of universities and hospitals in some 70 countries,” Dr Tabakov said.

Notes to editors

Leonard da Vinci Programme
The European Union’s Leonardo da Vinci vocational training programme was launched in 1995. The programme is designed to promote transnational co-operation between vocational training organizations in order to increase mobility, foster innovation and improve the quality of training. The programme co-funds transnational projects and is open to 31 countries.

The Leonardo da Vinci Awards were launched by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education and Culture in 2004.

For more information, visit the European Commission’s education and training website at: www.europa.eu.int

EMIT
The EMIT consortium is comprised of: The Department of Medical Engineering and Physics, King’s College, London; University of Lund; University of Florence; King’s College Hospital NHS Trust; Lund University Hospital; Hopital Albert Michallon (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble), and the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics.

The project is managed and coordinated by King’s College, London. For more information, visit: www.emerald2.net

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 ten schools of study. The College had 24 of its subject-areas awarded the highest rating of 5* and 5 for research quality, demonstrating excellence at an international level. The recent Institutional Audit, carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency, received an excellent result.

King's is in the top group of universities for research earnings with income from grants and contracts of more than £99 million (2003-2004) and has an annual turnover of £348 million. In 2004 the College was once again awarded a AA- credit rating from Standard & Poors.

King's is a member of the Russell Group, a coalition of the UK's major research-based universities.

Further information
Melanie Gardner, Senior Public Relations Officer, King’s College London
Tel: 020-7848 3073, email: melanie.gardner@kcl.ac.uk

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