Review of the Year 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, we take a look back at some of the highlights from over the year.

The year kicked off with the news that Professor Saye Khoo had been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours list for services to Infectious Diseases and Pharmacology.

Headshot of Professor Saye Khoo holding his MBE medal

Later in the year, Professors Melitta Gordon and Matt Rosseinsky were both recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours.

In February, it was announced that the University would jointly lead the UK’s flagship £12 million AI Hub for Chemistry.

Professor Andy Cooper is a co-Director of the new hub and he featured alongside Professor Katie Atkinson in the second episode of the University’s Original Ideas podcast which explored AI’s use in Chemistry and Computer Science.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Jones and Head of Chemistry Professor Neil Berry received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Chemistry at a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Professor Simon Maskell featured in a BBC documentary about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Professor Maskell discussed the work he and his team are doing that could help in the search for the plane which disappeared ten years ago.

In March, the University teamed up with the LFC Foundation, Everton in the Community, the Steve Morgan Foundation and IntoUniversity to launch a new Centre in Kirkby which provides educational support to young people facing disadvantage.

The University was announced as the project lead for a new £125 million national research facility – the Relativistic Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging facility (RUEDI) – which will drive forward scientific discoveries and technological advances.

An exhibition exploring the fascinating position animals held in ancient Egyptian and Sudanese society opened at the Victoria Gallery & Museum. Creatures of the Nile featured more than 250 objects including a bronze statue which entombed a mummified cat.

Rankings

This year, the University saw significant rises across both global and national rankings. For the first time, we broke into the top 20 in the Complete University Guide, rising to 19th place. We rose to 23rd in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide and 27th in the Guardian University Guide.

In global rankings, the University rose 11 places up to 165th in the QS World Rankings, achieved 160th  in the Times Higher Education World Rankings and ten subjects made the top 100 of the world Shanghai Global Subject Rankings.

We were one of just two UK universities to achieve the highest Gold rating in the Times Higher Education (THE) Online Learning Rankings 2024 and rose 8 places to 42nd in the QS sustainability rankings.

In addition, we saw significant improvements across all seven areas of the 2024 National Student Survey (NSS), placing us third overall in the Russell Group.

Partnerships

The University celebrated its long-standing partnership with the University of Georgia with reciprocal visits between the two institutions.  New strategic partnerships were signed with the University of McMaster in Canada and the Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad alongside new agreements with three universities and research institutes in Shanghai.

Celebration attendees stand in front of Shanghai city backdrop

In addition, the University also formalised partnerships with a range of organisations including the Manufacturing Technology Centre, Sizewell C and Roche Diagnostics.

To mark Taylor Swift’s sell-out concerts in the city during June, the University welcomed hundreds of Swifties to campus for a special `Tay Day’ symposium that explored the musical, economic and social phenomenon that is Taylor Swift.

At our summer graduations which took place in the Metropolitan Cathedral, seven esteemed figures received honorary degrees including composer Professor Dr Shirley J. Thompson and Fazakerly-born former global software leader and now philanthropist, Dr Steve Garnett.

Thanks to the support of Liverpool-born businessman Sir Peter Rigby, October saw the University  launch a new £1 million Centre for Enterprise. The Centre was established to transform student employability and raise the level of enterprise education and entrepreneurial skills development across the University community and Liverpool City Region.

University of Liverpool Vice Chancellor and Sir Peter Rigby standing next to signage saying Sir Peter Centre for Enterprise

The significant contribution to the local economy and wider impacts of the University were revealed in a new Economic and Wider Impacts Report which showed that University activities generated up to £1.2 billion and supported 15,870 jobs in the Liverpool City Region in 2022/23 alone.

Using his experience of treating horses, Dr David Stack, from the University’s Leahurst Equine Hospital, teamed up with Knowsley Safari this autumn to carry out the world’s first veterinary procedure to mend an 800kg baby rhinoceros’s broken leg.

The University was awarded £11 million in funding to establish the Hub for Advanced Long-acting Therapeutics (HALo) which will position the UK at the forefront of developments in long-acting therapeutics.

In October, the new Liverpool Institute of Child Health and Wellbeing, a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, was announced during a visit by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

We welcomed Metro Mayors Steve Rotheram and Andy Burnham to deliver the Heseltine Institute Annual Lecture in November, which included the announcement of plans for closer collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester to support innovation-led economic growth across the North West.

First year Dentistry student, Sumayah Kazi, was a contestant on this year’s Great British Bake Off. Sumayah baked her way through to week 7, winning Star Baker twice and she even got a showstopper handshake for her autumnal-themed cake.

The Liverpool City Region was announced as a new £6.75 million UKRI Creative Cluster for the Music sector. Led by the University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University, MusicFutures will establish the region as a music R&D powerhouse and ecosystem.

As the year draws to a close, we celebrated our winter graduations with 2,600 graduands, graduating at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall including former Gogglebox star Viv Woerdenweber who graduated with an MA in Archaeology.

 

 

Category

Tags