UCL announces action to acknowledge and address historical links with eugenics

UCL is today announcing a range of measures aimed at acknowledging and addressing the university's historical links with the eugenics movement. These include funding new scholarships to study race and racism, a commitment to ensure UCL staff and students learn about the history and legacy of eugenics and the creation of a two-year research post to further examine UCL's history of eugenics. UCL President & Provost Professor Michael Arthur will also recommend that the university's 'Buildings Naming and Renaming Committee' start the formal process of considering the current naming of spaces and buildings after two prominent eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Victorian scientist Francis Galton coined the term eugenics and endowed UCL with his personal collection and archive along with a bequest for the country's first professorial Chair of Eugenics. The action follows the publication today of a series of recommendations by the 'Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL', which has been led by independent chair Professor Iyiola Solanke, of the University of Leeds. The panel of prominent UCL academics and equality representatives from UCL and the Students' Union spent more than a year examining UCL's historical role in and the current status of the teaching and study of eugenics as well as any financial instruments linked to the study of eugenics which may benefit the institution. It undertook archival research as well as a survey of attitudes towards eugenics inside and outside the UCL community.