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01 May 2019

King's celebrates local partnerships and launches new Civic Challenge

Staff, students, colleagues and partners from King’s home boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster came together to celebrate our many existing local partnerships and officially launch King’s Civic Challenge.

Local partners and King's community celebrate local partnerships and launches new Civic Challenge

Staff, students, colleagues and partners from King’s home boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster came together to celebrate our many existing local partnerships and officially launch King’s Civic Challenge. 

Professor Ed Byrne AC, President & Principal of King’s College London, welcomed colleagues from local authorities, charities and voluntary organisations to King’s to celebrate our local collaborations, emphasising the value of active relationships with partners across our home boroughs. 

During the Vision consultation staff, students and alumni called for King’s to play an even greater role within our local communities. ‘It was in response to this collective ambition that King’s made its commitment to deepen partnerships within our home boroughs,’ said Baroness Bull, Vice President & Vice-Principal (London). 

‘We’re grateful to the many people across our boroughs and in our local communities who took the time to share their ideas and to tell us what they need from the university on their doorstep. It quickly became clear that there is huge scope for partnership – across education, research and service – and that the benefits of our collaborations would never be just one way.’ 

These conversations identified four areas in which King’s can help to support and sustain our local communities:

King's celebrates local partnerships and launches new Civic Challenge

At the event, representatives from charities, local authorities and voluntary organisations joined King’s staff, students and alumni who work closely with our local boroughs. 

There’s a role that King’s plays in working with us to identify solutions to the problems that matter to local communities.

Professor Kevin Fenton, Strategic Director of Place and Wellbeing and Director of Public Health at Southwark Council

Dr Ingrid Wolfe is Director of the Children and Young People's Health Partnership and Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Women’s and Children’s Health at King’s. She is leading a major research project currently underway in Lambeth and Southwark focused on a joined-up approach to young people's health that includes important social factors such as food insecurity.

Our work is focused on improving the lives of local children. The aim we share with our communities is to help children and young people to thrive, and through our research to generate new knowledge that can be applied across London and around the world.

Dr Ingrid Wolfe

There are many more examples of local partnership across King’s: 

  • Project REMAKE – students in the Dickson Poon School of Law worked with Peckham-based charity Prosper to support ex-prisoners to develop and launch their own businesses.  
  • King’s Scholars – aims to encourage local pupils from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to apply to, and succeed at, top universities. 
  • Board Bank – connecting King’s staff and students with local charities that are looking to recruit new trustees and developed in response to our local communities who asked us to help them find new board members.   

This commitment to our local communities – as well as a shared appetite to do more – inspired King’s Civic Challenge. The annual competition, which will go live in the autumn, will empower students, staff and local communities to team up to co-create imaginative solutions to local challenges that will deliver lasting change.

King's Civic Challenge will support and empower our staff, students and alumni to do even more - going beyond what is traditionally expected of a university and working in partnership with local communities to tackle the deep-rooted challenges they face.

Professor Jonathan Grant, Vice President & Vice-Principal (Service)

Learn more at kcl.ac.uk/local