Technological innovation
Our ambition here covers a lot more than shiny robots and app development. It is about our use of technologies to solve global challenges in research across all disciplines, improve our students’ experience and engage with the world.
New ways of thinking and working
Technological innovation is about staying open to new ways of thinking and doing things, even if they might fail. Technology is a positive tool to shape our work and help us make progress. We embrace new ways of working and new tools that can enhance our education, our research and our engagement.
Making the most of our innovation and collaboration
As we move towards 2031, we will better recognise the areas where we are innovating with technology and shout about about our many achievements. We will partnering with exciting players outside of our usual circles, and learning from and collaborating with those with the best knowledge of what’s coming next.
Our current activity in this area
We make the most of technological innovation in our collaborations in the UK and internationally. Take our European master’s programme in Drug and Alcohol Studies that uses technology to improve access to learning for a practitioners across Europe. We use it to disrupt the industries that we work in too. One of our alumna is shaking up the finance industry with a brand new bank while and our academics have made history by programming the first ever robot to give evidence in Parliament.
We have innovated in new and creative ways daily as our teaching and student support adapts to the global coronavirus pandemic. Technology connects our business school graduates to industry and showcases the work of our arts and creative industries students. With our forward-looking approach, we pushed boundaries to become the first university in the UK to use augmented reality equipment in our nursing and midwifery teaching. We stay ahead of the technology that our students will use in their future careers and equip them to use it.
There are inspiring examples of innovations through technology in research and knowledge exchange across our global community. Our Mauritius campus is working on an augmented reality platform for smart homes, our London campus has produced an app to support those working with refugees and Dubai has launched Global Legal Technology and Innovation Certificate.
Success stories from our community
Using smart technology to solve crimes
It might sound like science fiction but our VALCRI (Visual Analytics for Sense-making in Criminal Intelligence Analysis) research project is already helping police and security industries across Europe.
Funded through the European Commission, with partners across Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK, VALCRI is a semi-automated system that helps find patterns and connections in crime that humans often miss. It can help us to investigate crimes faster, using smarter techniques.
#TeamMDX alumna who disrupted the finance industry
Anne Boden MBE, who studied for her MBA at Middlesex, recently published BANKING ON IT: How I Disrupted an Industry. It which tells her story of founding the mobile-only lender Starling Bank. In an interview in The Observer, Anne describes how she struggled against people’s preconceptions: “People did think I was crazy, that no one ‘starts a bank’, especially people who looked like me”. She cites the lessons she learned at Middlesex in helping her to get Starling Bank off the ground.
In our support for our students and through our range of employability support, we help graduates like Anne every day to develop technology in unexpected ways and turn their ideas into something real.
More success stories
Pioneering humanising technology in the United Arab Emirates
As the first of its kind in the United Arab Emirates, the Centre for Innovation in Human Experience comprises a group of academics from Middlesex University Dubai and other professionals from the field of Data Science, Robotics, VR/AR and Human Centred Design. They are working together to meet the needs of organisations, entrepreneurs, and government for humanised digital transformation in business and society. The Centre has a focus on innovation, empathy, collaboration, safety, integrity, lawfulness and excellence. Work at the centre brings together three specialised labs – Insightsx Lab, RoboTechx Lab, and Immersive VRx Lab – each equipped with specialist resources and technology.
The first UK university with augmented reality tech for nursing
We are proud to be known for the innovative ways we use technology in our teaching, from our industry standard arts and creative industries facilities, to our use of apps in teaching mathematics. We recently made headlines by being the first to invest in augmented reality technology for our nursing and midwifery students. This demonstrates how technology can transform teaching, making our students better prepared for what they will face in the workplace.
On the new investment, Fiona Suthers, Head of the Clinical Skills Department and Midwifery said: “Middlesex is at the top of the game when it comes to using augmented reality. Our students will qualify as ready as they can be to work as nurses and
We want to hear from you
We have set the scene with some examples of the work we do in this area. We know this is not a complete list by any means, so now we are looking for your help.
Help us enhance our reputation and build up a better picture of activity by sharing examples of your work and from outside Middlesex.
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