Draft:King's College London Faculty of Natural Mathematical & Engineering Sciences

King’s College London:  Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences
The Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences (NMES) is one of nine faculties at King’s College London. Located primarily within and delivering a range of disciplines across King’s Strand campus, NMES also conducts teaching in chemistry and physics on its Waterloo campus, with the Chemistry department itself located at Britannia House on King’s Guy's campus.

In its initial form, the faculty was constituted originally in 2010 as Natural and Mathematical Sciences (NMS) from the former School of Physical Science and Engineering and has been on a significant growth trajectory ever since, with a 220% expansion in student numbers seen across the decade between 2013 and 2023. King’s was the first English university to establish an Engineering department and the tradition of engineering activity continued in different areas across the College before the formal re-establishment of a new Engineering department within NMS in 2019, leading to the faculty being reconstituted as NMES in 2021 following internal consultation and approval by King’s Academic Board.

Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences covers a range of research-led academic programmes from the fundamental sciences of mathematics and physics to informatics and general engineering, enabling students to work with a distinguished network of esteemed engineers and scientists. The faculty is partnered with the Francis Crick Institute, the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Thomas Young Centre and its researchers lead ground-breaking research there, whilst King’s own Randall Centre for Cell & Molecular Biophysics includes researchers from NMES who help to address fundamental biological questions at the interface between the physical and biomedical sciences.

Based in the heart of London with a long tradition of world-leading research and teaching in physics, mathematics, chemistry, computer science and engineering, NMES comprises the departments of Chemistry, Engineering, Informatics, Mathematics and Physics. The growth of engineering and natural sciences activity at King’s is a major strategic initiative for the university.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened on Tuesday 19 March 2019 (see here) the Bush House complex on the Strand campus, which provides new teaching facilities, social areas, office space and student space for the Department of Informatics. Following the investment of £50 million in new education and research laboratories including building new engineering laboratories under the Quad Building at the historic centre of the Strand campus, Engineering students and staff now have the benefit of facilities fit for a world-leading university.

Early Years
The faculty existed long before that and was known as the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE). Various departments within what is now NMES have featured at King's since the formation of the College in 1829; Physics and Chemistry were both original members of the King’s family from 1829 and Engineering followed soon after in 1838. The first Professor in Mathematics at King’s was appointed in 1830, although there was no actual department at the time, this forming gradually over time. Nevertheless, Maths was thriving at King’s by the turn of the 20th century.

The King’s Engineering Society (for students in the department) is the oldest of its kind, being formed in 1847. At least one member of the society participated in the 1989 raid on UCL to steal Jeremy Bentham's mummified head! This was in retaliation for the theft of Reggie, King's leonine mascot the previous year.

To illustrate the radically different times, in the 1960s, the annual student intake at King’s was about 3000. In Physics the intake of undergraduates at this time was just 35 plus nine PhD students. Undergraduate laboratories were located in a detached house in Hampstead once owned by Sir Edward Appleton (a Nobel Laureate and Physics alumnus). The decades leading up to the millennium saw the transformation of many technical colleges into universities as well as a drive to increase the number of students going to university overall. Many smaller institutions merged and were swallowed up by larger more established institutions such as King’s. The Physics Department itself merged with Chelsea College and Queen Elizabeth College in the 1980s, the latter having been an institution for ladies.

Faculties (or Schools as they were known) were certainly in existence but the main point of contact was directly between departments and central offices. For example, budgets were set centrally and communicated directly to departments. By the 1990s this was starting to change student numbers were increasing along with the complexity of university administration. In earlier decades the King’s Principals - who were dealing directly with departments - were not necessarily academics; from 1968-85 the Principals were General Sir John Hackett, Baron Cameron (both of whom came from the military) and Sir Richard Way (a civil servant in charge of London Transport). Since 1985, the Principal has always been an academic and with the rise of Schools administration began to be dominated at that level by home-grown academics. From the 1990s PSE was headed by Robert Hill (Physics), Roy Pike (Physics), Colin Bushnell (Maths) and Mike Yianneskis (Engineering). Even so, the shift of the centre of gravity towards Schools was gradual and uneven. The central finance office still set departmental budgets into the 1990s. But by the early 2000s the shift was more or less complete.

The New Millennium
The opening years of the new century were difficult for PSE. The Physics Department came very near to closing, at one point being reduced to only six academic staff. In 2003 Chemistry did close due to falling student numbers making the degree unviable.

2009 saw the appointment of the first outsider as Head of School in the form of Chris Mottershead who had previously overseen research at BP and had recently joined King’s as Vice Principal for Research. Mike Yianneskis stepped down both as Head of School and Head of Engineering creating a vacancy as Head of School that Chris filled on an interim basis. In May 2009 Chris felt that several departments, especially Engineering, were under-performing in research activity and had over-relied on increasing student numbers and therefore over-committed to teaching over research. A consultation was launched and Engineering was closed down, with the final tranche of students leaving finally in 2013. Many academic staff were transferred to Computer Science and Physics.

It was also decided to change the name of the School to Natural and Mathematical Science (NMS). Major investment was poured into the surviving departments, which all expanded rapidly. Soon after this it was decided to reopen Chemistry and this happened in 2012, initially as part of a different faculty but it was rapidly brought under the aegis of NMS.

Chris Mottershead was succeeded as Head of School in 2011 by Mike Walker, another 'outsider' and non-academic, this time from Vodafone. Mike oversaw a significant expansion of the Department of Informatics (previously Computer Science) and the development of research and study in the field of telecommunications. Mike Walker moved on in 2013 and was replaced by the outgoing Head of Informatics, Mike Luck.

Mike Luck's tenure saw the return of Engineering in 2019 and continued expansion across the faculty which now comprised the departments of Chemistry, Engineering, Informatics, Maths and Physics. At this time the 'School' became the 'Faculty' and the Head of School was re-designated Executive Dean. Mike's successor, Bashir M. Al-Hashimi, changed the name of the faculty again to Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (NMES) in 2021 to recognise the incorporation of the resurrected Department of Engineering and engineering as a distinct discipline.

Organisation
NMES consists of the following structural units, including both the departments of Chemistry and Engineering, which closed and reopened again as part of the faculty’s growth trajectory. Chemistry re-started in 2013 and the new Engineering department launched in 2017 with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities open from September 2022 as part of the Quad Redevelopment Project.

Leadership
NMES remains academically successful, financially sound and influential within King’s (and externally) in informing investment decisions and the future direction of the university, working with its five departments to consolidate existing and establish new interdisciplinary activities in NMES and across the university; developing an enterprise and engagement ecosystem; ensuring effective use of its teaching and research infrastructure and creating a healthy and inclusive workplace and learning environment.

The Executive Dean works with the Director of Operations in the faculty, who leads the Professional Services teams that underpin the academic environment. The NMES Executive Board is the decision-making body within the faculty and oversees a common approach to consultative business planning between the departments, faculty and university, leading to clear and transparent allocation of resource in line with departments’ academic and financial contributions.

Academic Leaders
NB: Faculties were instituted at King’s in the late 2010s and led by an Executive Dean. Formerly, they were referred to as Schools with a Head of School appointed to lead the School’s operational and strategic direction. The Faculty also currently has a team of four Vice-Deans to support key areas of academic business across NMES.

Professional Services Leadership
NB: The leadership role of faculty Professional Services has changed over time, transitioning from Director of Administration to Faculty Operating Officer through to Director of Operations in 2021.

Professional Services Structure
The function of NMES Professional Services is to support and enable the academic mission of the faculty and departments effectively and efficiently, working in close partnership with academic staff. Professional Services have alignments to their Professional Services functional lead, to their line manager and to the academic area(s) which they support.

Students
King’s is making significant investment in NMES, both in terms of student and staff numbers. NMES has currently around ~5,000 undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research students and around ~500 academic and postdoctoral research staff, supported by ~200 Professional Services colleagues. Within the overall student population, NMES has nearly 2500 overseas students (undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research) across 97 different nationalities. All academic departments offer a wide-ranging portfolio of undergraduate, postgraduate taught and PhD programmes, creating cutting-edge research-led education that provides opportunities to engage in multidisciplinary activities across the university and to develop partnerships with external groups and industry. Each department has a vibrant and distinct learning environment, where students work with, and learn from, world-leading academics whilst benefiting from an open-door policy and a wealth of high-quality support.