2022 at Goldsmiths

Supporting Lewisham's year as Borough of Culture

London Borough of Culture threw the spotlight on Lewisham’s diversity, creativity, and community – and we played a leading role in telling the borough’s story through our In Living Memory heritage project and supporting local enterprises. 

Celebrating 10 years of the Goldsmiths Prize 

The Goldsmiths Prize was founded in 2013 to reward writers who dare to do things differently; ten years on, it has become a highlight of the UK literary calendar. The 2022 Prize was awarded to Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams, who co-authored the winning text Diego Garcia.

Generating new insights and sharing expertise

Dr Rebecca Charlton highlighted the importance of social support for middle-aged and older autistic adults; Dr Ashok Jansari and PhD student Terence McGibbon developed a new type of sensitive memory test that could contribute to earlier diagnosis of dementia; and Professor Joydeep Bhattacharya, Professor Alan Pickering and MSc student Kaile Smith challenged the ‘tortured artist’ myth.

Colleagues from the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE) contributed to a House of Lords committee inquiry into the future of the creative industries. Dr Nicola Searle, Senior Lecturer in ICCE and Chair of Goldsmiths Council Dinah Caine CBE attended committee sessions in October and November, with the inquiry also receiving a written submission from ICCE.

We were inspired by our students’ achievements…

Our annual Degree Shows were a spectacular illustration of our students’ talents and hard work across disciplines: music, theatre, fine art, design, computing and more were all represented in an eclectic series of showcases.

... and celebrated their successes together

We brought back in-person graduation ceremonies for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Thousands of Goldsmiths graduands, along with their friends, families and supporters attended ceremonies held in January, April and July this year.

One of London's leading research universities

Results of the REF 2021 exercise were released in May, with nearly four-fifths of our outputs judged as “world leading” or “internationally excellent”. The results showed that the work of our researchers has a meaningful impact on society – from improving safeguarding in social work to reforming the commercial gambling sector.

We saw members of our community recognised

Goldsmiths Music graduate Rachel Duckett won the Voice of Black Opera competition. The soprano won the Sir Willard White Trophy and received a prize of £10,000, as well as coaching with music staff at the Welsh National Opera and a concert appearance with the WNO Orchestra.

Recent Politics graduate Hamza Taouzzale was announced as Lord Mayor for Westminster City Council in May. At 22 years old, Hamza is the youngest person to hold the role. He is also the first Muslim, and the first to come from a Black or minority ethnic background. 

Among our academic colleagues, Reader Dr Deirdre Osborne was announced as an Honorary Fellow by the Royal Society of Literature in July.

Research agency Forensic Architecture won the prestigious RIBA Charles Jencks Award 2022. The award recognises individual, or practice, who has made a major contribution to both the theory and practice of architecture with previous recipients including  Zaha Hadid and Herzog & de Meuron. 

Upholding the legacy of the New Cross Fire

In collaboration with Lewisham Council, we support local students to pursue their education with bursaries in memory of the victims of the New Cross Fire. In October, we hosted three years’ worth of bursary recipients, and the New Cross Fire families and supporters, at a special event led by the Mayor of Lewisham and the Warden.

Improving our local links

We launched our Civic Catalysts programme to enable more collaboration between Goldsmiths researchers and our local partners, and consulted with businesses in the creative industries to help them achieve their potential through Creative Futures.

Kick-starting new collaborations

Professor Farzana Shain and a cross-university team launched Generation Delta, a major project to improve the experiences of Black, Asian and minority ethnic women in academia; and Dr Larisa Soldatova and her team were awarded one of the first ever Network Development Awards from the Alan Turing Institute – the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

Showcasing innovative contemporary art at Goldsmtihs CCA

Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) was home to a number of high-profile exhibitions and events, including ‘Testament’, a major group exhibition exploring the role of monuments; and ‘Cinzia says…’, the first major retrospective of Italian artist and fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri (1942–2019) in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome.

Forming a new academic partnership in Croatia

In partnership with Algebra University College, Zagreb, we'll deliver six dual awards in Computing, Design and Digital Marketing for undergraduate and taught postgraduate students in the first partnership of its kind between UK and Croatian higher education institutions.

Helping students, staff and locals during the cost of living crisis 

In November we announced a package of measures worth more than £600,000 to help our community during the cost of living crisis. An additional £100,000 will fund a new student bursary scheme, with the College also offering support payments for staff and discounted food and drink on campus. In December, we joined the Lewisham Warm Welcomes scheme inviting local people to use our campus cafe to keep warm and have a free hot drink. 

Looking ahead

We started to develop our new organisational strategy, a plan to direct the College’s work over the next decade.