Annual Report 2020/21

Support for our students in the form of scholarships and grants has shone through the challenging and unprecedented times of the past year. Such championing of the arts and design will help us to secure the future of the College and enable our students, researchers and academics to continue to pursue creative excellence, innovation and entrepreneurship – which we need now more than ever. None of which would be possible without the RCA’s generous supporters.

2020/21 was the year that the College’s vision for the new Battersea campus became a reality.

Like many, the RCA is committed to reducing its environmental impact and designing sustainable solutions to tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges. In 2020/21 the RCA expanded the number of environmental focused initiatives and has ensured that its most forward thinking academics, alumni and students are at the forefront.

The Royal College of Art would like to express its gratitude and deepest thanks to the individuals, trusts, foundations, corporations and alumni who have donated and pledged over £10m in philanthropic support to the GenerationRCA campaign during 2020/21.

Events continued to be hosted online throughout the year and RCA staff, students, alumni and close friends were able to enjoy Vice-Chancellor’s Talks with leading art and design figures, from the comfort of their own home.

The Royal College of Art (RCA)-led consortium has been awarded a grant of £5.4m by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to establish the Textiles Circularity Centre (TCC) to enable the transition to a more ‘circular’ economy.

Celebrating its first year, the Design Age Institute will launch The Design Age Directory, This Age Thing and a framework to deliver 16 pathfinder projects at today’s Age, Agency & Joy virtual event.

The Royal College of Art (RCA) has been awarded funding from the AHRC for a project called Sustainable Materials in the Creative Industries (SMICI). 

The RCA’s Materials Science Research Centre (MSRC), in partnership with University College London (UCL), has been awarded a 2.5-year Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Sustainable Digital Society award to drive its mission of sustainability in textiles.

A UK research collaboration to tackle antibiotic resistance in healthcare has launched a new website Preserving Antibiotics through Safe Stewardship (PASS).

Information about the ways universities help improve knowledge exchange with their local areas is one of the highlights of the data released in the first iteration of Research England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF).

Wayne Binitie, an AHRC-funded Royal College of Art (RCA) PhD student, is the artist behind Polar Zero. The immersive exhibition at Glasgow Science Centre injects an artistic and cultural dimension to the climate negotiations at the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26).

Five impressive teams of RCA graduates have been selected to join InnovationRCA’s Start-up Programme.

The Royal College of Art is collaborating with Imperial College Business School and a consortium of industry partners, known as Wicked Acceleration Labs, to develop techniques to speed up the resolution of the world’s wicked problems.