Generation UCL

In the lead up to UCL’s bicentenary in 2026, a research and engagement project puts students and alumni at the heart of the history of UCL.

‘Generation UCL’ explores 200 years of student life in London, turning institutional history upside down to suggest that the first students of 1828 should be seen as the real ‘founders’ of UCL. Generation UCL is establishing the first major collection of oral history interviews with UCL alumni and has supported the deposit of students’ union archive material and student ephemera with UCL Special Collections.

Importantly, the project is also researching student life at the many formerly independent higher education institutions that later merged with UCL: the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (1835), the School of Pharmacy (1842), the London School of Medicine for Women/Royal Free Hospital Medical School (1874), the London Day Training College/Institute of Education (1902), the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (1915), the Institute of Archaeology (1937) and the Institute of Neurology (1950).

The project is a partnership between Education, Practice and Society at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, Students’ Union UCL, and the Office of the Vice-President (Advancement). The project works closely with the UCL200 Bicentennial team and UCL Special Collections.

Generation UCL is led by Professor Georgina Brewis (IOE) and John Dubber (Students’ Union UCL). Dr Sam Blaxland, Lecturer in Education (IOE), leads on the oral history element of the project. We also work with a number of student researchers and interns.

Our open access book Student London: A New History of Higher Education in the Capital will be published by UCL Press in 2026. Our programme of impact and engagement activities involve the whole UCL community. In 2023 we published a short history of Students’ Union UCL and curated an exhibition in UCL’s Octagon Gallery which ran until December 2024. In 2024 we worked with UCL’s Race Equality Steering Group to produce a revised historical walking tour.

Further reading
Negley Harte, John North and Georgina Brewis, The World of UCL (UCL Press, 2018).

Sam Blaxland, Students' Union UCL: A Short History (UCL, 2023).

Georgina Brewis and Amy Spencer, The Quadrangle Over 200 Years (UCL, 2024).

Project exhibition:

Generation UCL: 200 Years of Student Life in London | UCL CULTURE - UCL – University College London

News and events

HIV and AIDS activism in Bloomsbury and beyond during the 1980s and 1990s

If you happened to be walking on the shingle beach of Dungeness on 22 September 1991, you may have witnessed a curious event: a group of gay men dressed as nuns preforming a ceremony with the visual artist Derek Jarman, an alumnus of the Slade School of Fi

A. E. Housman at UCL: an austere Latin professor whom students adored

In the summer of 2024, I undertook a research fellowship with Generation UCL. I analysed two relevant oral history interviews and researched A. E. Housman’s connection to UCL (through the lens of student experience). This blog post aims to present the key findings from that research.

What were UCL students’ experiences during the Second World War evacuation? —— Revelations from student magazine New Phineas

The evacuation and the launch of New Phineas

Beyond the Confines: What an Oral History Interview Inspired in Me

Taking part in Generation UCL: 200 years of student life in London as an EPSURF researcher is probably the most exciting memory I have from this summer. I want to use this blog as an opportunity to look back at this journey and, more importantly, to reflect on a specific oral history interview recording with a UCL alumnus.

Read all the Generation UCL blog posts

UCL has shaped the lives of generations of students, and in turn those generations of students have shaped UCL, London and the wider world. Students have played an important role throughout UCL's history and the ‘Generation UCL’ project will help uncover the enormous impact of student culture at UCL through the stories that connect us all.
Osman Teklies, Students’ Union UCL Union Affairs Officer, 2020–2021