King's College London

As Senior Vice President (Academic), Professor Rachel Mills leads on academic strategy and delivery, bringing together King’s education and research ambitions. She is also the academic sponsor for the Campus Futures programme, and the senior sponsor for King’s Climate and Sustainability. A deep-sea oceanographer by training, she was awarded a CBE in 2024 for services to marine science.

In this video interview, Professor Rachel Mills, Senior Vice President (Academic) discusses King’s academic strategy and interdisciplinarity, the thinking behind the Campus Futures programme, and the importance of staying curious.

A full text version of the interview, including additional details not featured in the video, can be found below.

What is your role and what does it involve?

My role at King’s is the Senior Vice President (Academic). So sometimes I'm deputising for the Vice-Chancellor, so I'm the Deputy Vice-Chancellor here, and sometimes I'm here organising the academic activity within King’s.

And that can be overseeing the nine different academic faculties. It can be looking at everything the students are doing, from learning in the classroom to all of the different activities that students undertake. It’s the research that's carried out in our faculties. It's the impact of that research out in our communities. It's the collaborative work we do all around the world.

So it really covers anything that touches students, education, or research, which is huge here at King's.

How do you define academic excellence?

When I use the phrase academic excellence, I mean everything from students’ experience in the classroom, to the research we are carrying out in our labs and libraries; from the impact of that research on our communities, to our innovation ecosystem and spin out companies.

One of the most exciting things about King's is that academic excellence is not just disciplinary. Of course, we have extraordinary talents in disciplines, but we work across those disciplinary boundaries in all sorts of ways.

Obviously, you've heard about the King's Interdisciplinary Science programme, which we set up a couple of years ago, which is delivering new innovation across chemistry, physics, maths, and biology.

We’ve set up our new Natural Sciences programme, but our interdisciplinary ambitions are so much broader than that. They go right the way across all of our nine faculties - whether at the interface of law and psychology, for example, engineering and Med tech, or digital humanities. And it’s at those interfaces that really exciting things can happen.

How does this link to Strategy 2030?

So as we're developing Strategy 2030, as we think about where we'll be in five years’ time, of course we’ll have developed our core disciplines. But we'll also have done much more of this interdisciplinary work.

We're investing in interdisciplinary activity, whether it's in AI, whether it's in health, whether it's in security, whether it's in science and engineering. And that's higher risk, for sure, because people have to get out of their comfort zones, they have to work in ways they haven't thought about before. But the rewards from that high-risk activity are extraordinary.

What role do you play in the Campus Futures programme?

So we believe really strongly that campus strategy needs to be led by academic strategy because, fundamentally, we're a university and we do research and we teach students.

And so I'm the academic sponsor of that programme. But again, this is partnership working with our estates and facilities team, with the Senior Vice President (Operations), Jeremy Cook, who leads this programme on an operational basis. Obviously with our IT colleagues, and with a whole swathe of activity across the University.

My role is to bring the academic strategy from the faculties, bring the prioritisation of where we're growing disciplines, where we're growing that new interdisciplinary work, where we're investing in new activities.

We need to make sure the campus is the right size and has the right fit out for our ambitions. And that investment and the impact of Campus Futures will be felt across all five of our campuses.

Where does sustainability fit into Campus Futures?

Sustainability is embedded right the way through the Campus Futures programme.

So whether it's about decarbonising our estate in our listed buildings here in central London, which is really difficult, but we are committed to doing that, or whether it's reusing the furniture that we use as we refurbish our spaces. We are building plans across each of our campuses to ensure that as we refurbish buildings, as we replace things, we do so in the most sustainable way,

But sustainability goes well beyond Campus Futures. It goes right the way across our operations. And I'm the Senior Sponsor for what's called King's Climate and Sustainability. That's about working with a team that makes sure that we're embedding sustainability into our curricula, that we're embedding sustainability into our research and our operations and every part of our practice.

We need to do this. We need to do this at pace to meet our commitments, and we need to do it to save our planet.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

My favourite part of my job is the people. It’s seeing those people move through difficult times. They have great challenges, but they achieve such amazing things.

Working as an academic is a lot of rejection. We have papers that are rejected. We have grants that are rejected. We have jobs that we don't get. But seeing people transition through that and come out the other side and have those successes, bring in those grants, writing those papers, getting those degrees - that is the best bit about working in a university.

What do you do to relax?

What do I do to relax?

I run, I ride horses, I climb up cliffs, I swim in the sea. So I guess I'm a bit hyperactive.

I get myself in the zone doing something that's quite challenging and allows me to forget everything else and really focus on something. And I find that really helps in terms of just getting that work life balance right.

Who inspires you?

The type of person that inspires me are those that are still curious, that still ask the most extraordinary questions, that can think beyond the boundaries, that can link things up and take great leaps of imagination.

I think one of the real privileges of being in a university is that if you're curious, there are so many questions to ask. There are so many people you can talk to. There are so many people you can find that are an expert in something that you know nothing about, and they're willing to share that expertise with you.

And that is a massive privilege. And I think I've just learned to stay curious, keep asking questions, keep driving to understand in different ways, and always understand that there's a different perspective. There is another way to look at the problem, and that's where you get that new insight. It’ by turning it around and thinking from the other side. And I try to do that as much as I can.