All biological interactions, whether they take place on a molecular, organism or ecosystem scale, are part of complex dynamical systems. Understanding the behaviour of these systems lies at the heart of many key challenges in biological research. In this module you will have the opportunity to develop and investigate mathematical models of biological systems. You will learn techniques to construct, implement and analyse interaction networks using the Python programming language.

This module will provide an introduction to the phenomena of radicalization and terrorism; including key definitions, causal accounts, empirical trends, past and present manifestations, current groups, and tactics. Through successive case studies, students will familiarize themselves with the following five approaches to prevention and disruption: Efforts to anticipate and prevent terrorism acts through situational measures; enforcement measures used to disrupt, disable or suppress the activities of terrorist networks; interventions aimed at the individual actor, their risk factors, belief systems and pathways out of terrorism involvement; removal of the economic basis for terrorist activities by attacking organized crime; and strategies which focus on the “root causes” of terrorism and radicalization.

Civic engagement is now considered to be a key process in urban design and planning practice. This module presents ‘Civic Design’ as an emergent field that brings together a wide diversity of disciplines: urban design, planning, service design, architecture, geography, UX design and others. The module is delivered in collaboration with Civicwise (http://civicwise.org), an international community of professionals working on tools and projects for civic engagement. Students will engage with a hybrid digital and physical learning environment, in which they can share their projects with a wide community of professionals currently working on Civic Labs, receive feedback, and work collaboratively with their peers.

London is truly a global city. An international center of culture and art, business and finance, education and research and tourism: the city is also home to people from all over the world who help shape and characterize its diversity. Despite its status as a global city, London must also be understood as an ordinary city; one of the hundreds of large cities around the world where people negotiate their daily routines of living, working, traveling and sharing space with others. This course will use London as a springboard to explore ways that contemporary cities are being theorized, experienced and understood. The course aims to challenge you to consider your own relations to, and place within, an increasingly urbanized world.

As the planet’s land use and human population become increasingly urban, environmental problems and politics of cities are evermore critical for improving socio-environmental relationships and outcomes. Thus, this module will explore the urban political conflicts of environmental issues like climate change, air pollution, water quality/quantity, resource and energy use, waste disposal, and more. Using a range of case studies from around the world and beginning with some of the contested material flows of resources that both transform and comprise cities, the module then will move to address politicized ideas of nature, conservation, and habitats in the city while concluding with discussions of human agency and responses to the uneven social impacts of urban environmental problems.

This module will look at what we know about healthy brains - how the brain is structured, the different types of brain cells, localisation of function and neurochemistry of different brain areas, communication within the brain and how we investigate the brain in week 1. In weeks 2 and 3 the module will look at dysfunction in relation to vison, hearing, movement, memory, thinking, emotion and behaviour. UCL is ranked as second in the world for neuroscience and students will get to hear about the amazing world class research that takes place within the Faculty of Brain Sciences and its constituent parts: the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, the Division of Psychiatry, the Institutes of Ophthalmology and Neurology and the Ear Institute.

Provides an introduction to definitions used in population and public health, basic theories, and conceptual frameworks linking major determinants of health with a range of individual and population health outcomes. Students will discover the major milestones in the history of population health, while exploring the role of London in public health research.

The use of nanotechnology in medicine is an emerging field that can revolutionize the treatment and detection of disease. This module offers both an insight into these emerging technologies and a fundamental understanding of why size matters and how nanoscale technologies interact with biological environments. Through hands on laboratory sessions, workshops and lectures, students will see how this technology offers huge leaps in diagnostics.

Please note there is a bench fee of £100 for the use of labs and consumable materials.

Cross-border commercial disputes are frequently resolved by arbitration in London. London is home to a wide range of arbitral institutions and boasts a wealth of talented arbitration professionals. This module concerns the contractual and procedural elements of international commercial arbitration from comparative and practical perspectives, focusing particularly on the English Arbitration Act 1996, the UNCITRAL Model Law and the New York Convention.

This module offers perspectives on corporate social responsibility both as a governing mechanism for businesses as well as a form of business practice. Students will examine the theoretical paradigms surrounding the corporate objective, international movements in corporate social responsibility led by organisations such as the OECD and the UN, and delves into the role of corporations’ vis-à-vis social rights at both domestic and international levels. The module devotes a significant proportion of time to the role of corporations in human rights and furthering social welfare and will discuss key critical perspectives on other social rights, including labour and the environment, where relevant. This module challenges students into viewing the role and responsibility of the corporation from perspectives beyond the traditional idea of profit making.

Considers the role that law plays in society, with a particular focus on the ways in which lawyers can achieve social change. The module is rooted broadly in law and social sciences and will be richly interdisciplinary in its approach. It will introduce students to conceptions of social justice and to the lawyer client relationship, as well as the role of charities and NGOs in advocating and campaigning on social welfare and human rights. By the end of the module students will be able to question their assumptions about the ways in which the law is constructed and understood in society, as well as the ways in which lawyers achieve, or might fail to achieve, social justice.

This module is designed to provide students with an introduction to International Law, to European Union Law and to English Common Law. Week 1 will concentrate on International Law, week 2 will focus on European Union Law as an example for a regional law regime in an international context, and week 3 will provide an overview of the development and the basic structures of the English Legal System. The connection between International Law, EU Law and domestic law (both English and students’ home jurisdictions) will be explored around current issues such as the refugee crisis and climate change. The module will be interactive and students will be encouraged to discuss the law and critically analyze decisions and current legal problems.

The module in its scope, aims to offer exposure to the fundamental principles of special and general relativity and their significance to the evolution of the Cosmos. Topics such as stellar interiors, classification and evolution along with galaxy dynamics will be discussed in some detail. The module will culminate with descriptions of current cosmological models and touch up on recent developments of the much discussed dark matter and dark energy mysteries and what they entail to the evolution of the Universe.

This module is designed to introduce students to the foundations of organic chemistry by focusing on the structures, properties and chemical reactivity of the various carbon based compounds. This course will also cover different aspects of isomerism observed in organic molecules as well as the reactions’ mechanisms (substitution, elimination, and addition) in terms of the electrons flow. Various analytical techniques (MS, NMR and IR) will be introduced as a tool to determine organic structures.

Science and innovation are playing a central part in developed societies, with scientists being increasingly seen as key economic actors. Informed science journalism is more necessary than ever, if our societies are to develop as sustainable democracies. This module considers key aspects of news writing and offers participants the possibility to experiment practically with the production of different genres of journalistic output: News story, feature article, blog post, and podcast. For the latter, students will have access to the radio studio installed in the Science and Technology Studies department. The module’s practical approach invites students to reflect on the role of science journalists in today’s society. By the end of the module, participants will have produced contents that will be featured on a dedicated webpage.

What is the evidence for anthropogenic climate change? How can we generate lowcarbon electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, and how can we make our transport infrastructure greener? This module has a strong emphasis on the underlying physical principles of low-carbon energy sources, as well as simple estimates their potential contribution.

Provides students with a broad understanding of issues relating to crime measurement, crime patterns, explanations of criminal behavior, and crime prevention. The module will consider the challenges and processes associated with measuring and analyzing crime and will present some of the key crime trends. Special attention will be devoted to how crime patterns manifest in space and time and how they can be analyzed. Criminological and psychological theories will be compared and the role of the traditional criminal justice system as a means of crime control will be explored.

Provides an introduction to what it means to study education at a higher level. Students will attend sessions at the UCL Institute of Education, where a range of experts will present their responses to the question: what is education? What is education for, what is its purpose, both here and now and looking to the future?; What should be its fundamental values and ethics?; What do we mean by knowledge and learning (including formal and informal learning)?; What is our concept of education?; What is our image of the learners, educators, learner contexts, and of community/ society?; Who is responsible for education, and what does it mean to be responsible?

This module explores how London’s urban form is developing in response to the economic, social, and environmental challenges associated with its role as a ‘global city’. Capitalizing on UCL’s position in the heart of London, the module will introduce students to key frameworks for urban policy and planning decision-making, and will examine the processes shaping the urban development within London. Students will engage with current debates over issues such as airport expansion, super-tall buildings and affordable housing. Perspectives from social science and urban design will be used to critically examine how cities can respond to the challenge of ensuring a sustainable urban future. The insights, knowledge and skills developed on this module can ultimately be applied to cities around the world.

Breakthroughs in key technologies will require multidisciplinary approaches from the work of fundamental scientists in the creation of new chemistries, to the applied work of engineers in materials scale up and fabrication, to the economic and policy regulations and guidance that will be required to facilitate such change. Although significant research is being undertaken in both academic and industrial environments, education on such devices remains limited. This course builds upon the teachings of the ‘Energy and future cities’ module in session one, exposing the audience to a detailed description of the fundamental mechanisms that drive electrochemical devices and how these devices are fabricated and implemented into real-word products answering questions such as: what is a battery? How is a battery made? Where and how can one implement battery technology?

Urban geoscience encompasses the geological aspects of the built environment in the context of construction materials and, the underlying bedrock that affects the stability of built structures. In London, the relevance of these aspects are evident. For example, landslips can disrupt rail services and, non-uniform expansion and shrinkage of underlying clay sub-soil results in cracks in buildings. Water resource is another important consideration in the growing urban context. Growing urbanisation also implies that the cities are increasingly becoming repositories of valuable materials that should be targets for recovery by urban mining. These critical aspects of urban geology are evident for London and will be explored, but also relevant to other expanding cities in the world.

Provides an introduction to the discipline of global health. Each week will be framed around the ‘wicked problems’ facing our world and the ways in which the individual can engage with global issues. Topics covered include access and availability of healthcare, inequality, poverty, ethics, aid, and the key actors in global health. Each week will begin with a U.K. case study relating to a core topic, and end with an excursion to a local site of significance in the development of the global health discipline.

Mental disorders, e.g. schizophrenia, dementia, depression, are common across all countries and constitute about 14% of the global burden of disease. Many people with a mental disorder - and the majority of those living in low income countries - still have no access to the treatments they need. This module will offer students from a range of backgrounds, e.g. social sciences, medicine, psychology, an understanding of basic principles of how mental disorders present, the impact on individuals and the advances in treatment and recovery.

Peripheral Nerve Injury is a field of regenerative medicine which is advancing towards a paradigm shift in available therapeutic options. This module offers the student the capacity to experience all the current therapeutic options for peripheral nerve injury treatment through a collaboration of the only clinical unit in the world to focus purely on nerve injury and UCL; a recognized world leader in neurobiology and engineering.

The recent policy reforms in the NHS, and the challenges faced by health systems globally emphasise the need for future doctors and healthcare managers to understand how systems function, how they are financed, and how strategic policies are developed to ensure the provision of care to the highest quality standards. Looking at the vision and eye health subsector, with Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology staff as facilitators of various sessions, students will engage in informed discussions about how various policies, different strategic approaches and types of financing can affect health systems and how Moorfields is addressing these challenges.

Cross-border commercial disputes are frequently resolved by arbitration in London. London is home to a wide range of arbitral institutions and boasts a wealth of talented arbitration professionals. This module concerns the contractual and procedural elements of international commercial arbitration from comparative and practical perspectives, focusing particularly on the English Arbitration Act 1996, the UNCITRAL Model Law and the New York Convention.

Considers the role that law plays in society, with a particular focus on the ways in which lawyers can achieve social change. The module is rooted broadly in law and social sciences and will be richly interdisciplinary in its approach. It will introduce students to conceptions of social justice and to the lawyer client relationship, as well as the role of charities and NGOs in advocating and campaigning on social welfare and human rights. By the end of the module students will be able to question their assumptions about the ways in which the law is constructed and understood in society, as well as the ways in which lawyers achieve, or might fail to achieve, social justice.

The selling and purchasing of goods across territorial borders is an ancient yet sophisticated commercial activity, and carriage of goods by sea has been the backbone of international trade since ancient times. International trade involves interlocking contracts, including letters of credit and contracts of sale, carriage and insurance, all of which concern the minds of traders whilst performing this activity for profit. English law enjoys a long-standing predominance in the international shipping market, as it is frequently chosen by the parties to govern their contracts of carriage, and this module covers both the principles of the laws, and all facets of contracts, disputes and remedies.

Provides an introduction to significant aspects of human anatomy and embryonic development, preparing students for more advanced studies in these subjects. The module covers topographical anatomy and embryonic development of the nervous system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, musculoskeletal system, urogenital system, and limbs. The first few weeks of human development will be examined, alongside the cellular organization of tissues and organs.

Data Science is an exciting new area that combines scientific inquiry, statistical knowledge, substantive expertise, and computer programming. One of the main challenges for businesses and policy makers when using big data is to find people with the appropriate skills. This module will cover classic topics in data analysis (regression, binary models, and panel data) and introduce more specialised techniques, such as classification and decision trees, clustering and pattern recognition, and dimensionality reduction. It will cover data preparation and processing, including working with structured, key-value formatted (JSON), and unstructured data.