Imperial’s new ceremonial mace unveiled for first time at the 2009 Postgraduate Awards Ceremony

Unique mace to celebrate the College’s independence displayed in the Royal Albert Hall - <em>News Release</em>

For immediate use
Wednesday 6 May 2009

A silver and gilt mace created to mark the independence of Imperial College London makes its first appearance today at the College’s Postgraduate Awards Ceremony in the Royal Albert Hall.

The mace, donated by the Goldsmiths’ Company in recognition of its longstanding relationship with Imperial, will be formally presented to the College at the ceremony by the Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Grant Macdonald. It will be used in future ceremonies to lead the academic procession into the Royal Albert Hall and displayed on stage.

Weighing 7.1 kgs and measuring 1.2 metres, the £25,000 mace incorporates a helix-shaped stem representing the structure of human DNA to reflect the College’s mission to carry out and apply cutting edge scientific research. It is topped by a head depicting the College’s crest and also includes the Goldsmiths’ Company’s coat of arms.

Sir Roy Anderson, Rector of Imperial says:

“We are enormously grateful to the Goldsmiths’ Company for this generous and beautiful gift. It was a landmark occasion for the College to achieve independence and receive its new royal charter in 2007, and it is wonderful to have a tangible representation of that in this mace.

“Students are the lifeblood of a university and it is therefore highly appropriate that the first people to see the mace are our high achieving postgraduates.”

The mace was designed by silversmiths Carl Padgham and Andrew Putland, who say it was a challenging project. Andrew explains: “On one level the mace looks quite simple, but in terms of manufacturing it was anything but. It is definitely the most ambitious piece we have made to date and involved a lot of trial and error, in the process of which we had to develop new techniques. However we are delighted with the finished work and it has been worth all the effort.”

Sir Roy examines the new mace. Photo: Martin Stewart

The Postgraduate Awards events today see over 1,600 students graduating over two ceremonies with higher degrees in science, engineering, medicine and business.

The College will also award an honorary degree jointly to philanthropists Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham, whose Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment has funded research institutes on climate change at Imperial and LSE.

Fellowships of Imperial College will be awarded to figures judged to have made significant contributions to the life of the College: Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, now Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council and formerly Principal of the Faculty of Medicine and then Deputy Rector at Imperial; and Professor Tom Kibble, a noted theoretical physicist, who has worked at the College for over 50 years, serving as Head of the Department of Physics from 1983-1991.

Congratulating graduands and guests, Sir Roy says:

“I find it inspiring to see this Hall filled with people who have chosen to invest their time, effort and finances in science, technology, and business, who have excelled as a result. I strongly believe that your investment is one that will bring significant reward. The benefits are long-term and far-reaching for individuals and for nations.

“In March this year President Barack Obama announced that he would invest over $21 billion in US science as part of his economic stimulus package. He also wants his country to spend 3% of GDP on research and development. I hope that the UK government will be inspired by his example and also make substantial investments in the science and technology base of this country. The future of our country and our world depends on scientific innovation and invention.”

The mace was designed by Carl Padgham and Andrew Putland. Photo: Martin Stewart

Today’s ceremonies also see the presentation of Research Excellence Awards worth £150K each to two Imperial teams demonstrating high academic achievement and carrying out research with significant future potential.

This year’s winners are teams led by Professor Hugh Spikes for work in the field of tribology, the science of friction and lubrication; and by Professors Daniel Davis and Paul French for work developing imaging technologies that allow live cell and single molecule imaging at enhanced speed and resolution.

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Notes to editors:

Photos of the mace are available on request.

About the mace

A ceremonial mace is a highly ornamented staff of metal and wood, carried before a sovereign or other high official in civic ceremonies by a mace bearer, intended to represent the official's authority.

The silversmiths, Padgham and Putland, designed the mace bearing in mind it will be mainly used in the College’s graduation ceremonies and that most of the audience would be looking down on it from tiered seating, hence the head of the mace had to have presence both in size and structure. The commissioning of the mace was overseen by the Goldsmiths’ Company’s Modern Plate Committee.

Biographies of the new honorary graduates:

Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham

Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham are committed philanthropists focused on protecting the environment. Over a decade ago they established the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment with the mission of protecting and improving the global environment. The Foundation supports organisations such as World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Oxfam, and also funds the Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment.

More recently, the Foundation enabled the creation of two related research institutes focused on the issue of climate change. The Grantham Institute for Climate Change, set up at Imperial in 2007, aims to develop the technological, market and policy solutions needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change. A sister Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment was established at LSE in 2008 and a co-funded climate centre was established at the Institute of Science in Bangalore this year.

Biographies of the new fellows

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz is a distinguished medical researcher and practitioner.

He joined Imperial as the first Principal of the Faculty of Medicine in 2001, playing a major role in shaping its character and direction. In 2004 he broadened his role to become the College’s Deputy Rector, with responsibility for the overall academic and scientific direction of the College.

He took up his current role as Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council in 2007.

Before moving into s cience leadership roles, Sir Leszek was renowned as a researcher in viral immunology, infectious diseases, viral induced cancer and vaccine development. He was knighted in 2001 for his part in developing a vaccine for the human papil lomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer.

Professor Tom Kibble

Professor Tom Kibble is a renowned scientist whose relationship with Imperial College London has spanned 50 years, during which time he has made enormous contributions to both the field of particle physics and to the life of Imperial.

His research focuses mainly on quantum field theory and cosmology. He is renowned as a pioneer of the concept of cosmic strings and as one of the co-discoverers of the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson, the theoretical particle believed to give mass to other particles.

Professor Kibble began his career as a Commonwealth Fund Fellow at the California Institute of Technology after obtaining his PhD in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh in 1958.

He arrived at Imperial in 1959 as a NATO Fellow as part of the group led by Professor Abdus Salam, awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979. He became a lecturer in 1960 and a professor in 1970, and served as Head of the Department of Physics from 1983 to 1991.

About Imperial College London

Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 13,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve health in the UK and globally, tackle climate change and develop clean and sustainable sources of energy.

Website: www.imperial.ac.uk