Blog posts

Mining Finance Continuing Professional Development Courses

Imperial College offers a range of continuing professional development (CPD) training courses through the Centre for Professional Development.  These provide a comprehensive guide to understanding the main factors involved in securing the financial support for mining projects through equity, debt, or entering into a joint venture.  This involves addressing the underlying technical principles, applying these to mineral projects and demonstrating how these influence the financial modelling.

The programme attracts a wide international participation from professionals from the financial institutions as well as the minerals industry. In addition to the long-standing ‘Introduction to Mining for Bankers’ course that runs in July each year, we also run the Metals and Energy Finance course. 

Medical Ethics Intensive One Week Course, 11-15 September 2017

By Professor Raanan Gillon

In 1983 I started a one week CPD course in medical ethics to  introduce doctors to several different  approaches to ethics (currently deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics, ‘the four principles approach’). The course  considers a variety of problems in medical ethics including end of life issues, double effect, acts and omissions, killing vs allowing to die, paternalism versus respect for autonomy, truth-telling in medical practice, a session on ‘practical aspects of medical ethics’,  fair distribution of resources, the relation of ethics and law,  human rights and medical ethics. A half-day session is aimed at helping participants to understand opposing perspectives by means of an exercise in developing arguments explicitly opposing participants’ own viewpoints concerning cases that they have found troubling.

Post-Tensioning Design and Construction Course Completes 12th Year

This April we completed our 12th annual course on post-tensioning design and construction. Over the years, the course has taken on its own legendary status and has become a highly sought after event by UK and international delegates. Consistently, engineers calling from over 10 countries participate in the course to learn about the basics of post-tensioning and sharpen their design skills. Many of the larger design offices have also made it standard practice to send new hires to the course. As lecturers, we have been very pleased with the logistical support we receive from the Center for Professional Development. Imperial College has proven to be a great venue and creates a collegial atmosphere among the delegates.

Medical ethics as applied to paediatric practice

Law and Ethics in Paediatrics is a two day course looking at medical law and ethics as applied to paediatric practice. This important course will cover topics such as negligence, confidentiality, child protection, research, end of life care, organ donation, reporting of deaths and the Coronial process; delegates will get the opportunity to visit Westminster Coroner’s Court.

Course aims include enhancing the problem-solving skills necessary to solve practical problems in paediatric practice through debate and discussion and to provide familiarisation with the Coroner’s Court and the Coronial process.

The course is open to doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and students of medicine or law and has recently been added to the modules available on the MSc Paediatrics and Child Health programme offered at Imperial College London.

Laryngectomy: rehabilitation and surgical voice restoration (Advanced Level)

Leading experts Yvonne Edels and Margaret Coffey recently delivered another successful advanced level Laryngectomy course for speech therapists.

The course is a joint venture between Imperial College London (ICL) and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT).  It is specifically designed for speech and language therapists (SLT’s) who have specialised in the field of Head and Neck Cancer, specifically cancers leading to laryngectomy (removal of the larynx).  Course applicants must have previous working experience in the field. Numbers are limited to around 30 delegates to maximise the learning experience.

The focus is on surgery for standard laryngectomy and options for extensive surgical reconstruction; changes to the anatomy and physiology, their effects upon breathing, swallow and voice production and complications associated with these procedures.

Alumnus returns to Imperial after 50 years, to deliver a CPD course

Imperial alumnus Professor Bijan Aalami recently delivered a CPD short course on ‘Post Tensioning Design and Construction’, to 50 civil engineers, in Lecture Theatre 201 Skempton Building.  It was in this very room, 50 years ago on the same day, where Bijan was awarded his PhD degree.

He said “this day has brought back lovely memories of my student days at Imperial!  The civil engineering department has not changed a bit after all these years, and the lecture theatre looks exactly the same”.  The Alumni Office interviewed Bijan during the course about his return visit.  We hope this will encourage more successful alumni to come back to Imperial, to deliver CPD short courses.

Offering higher education leadership training – from China to Pakistan

Since 2012, the Centre has successfully developed and launched a five day programme held at the College for university leaders from all over China, funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education.  The programme provides a unique insight into various aspects of university management from a world-class university perspective, looking at professional best practice in specific areas.  These cover: Research strategy and management, Assurance of academic standards and quality, Curriculum development Translation and enterprise activities and Staff management.

We are extremely proud to have trained 175 university vice presidents from China and look forward to the next cohort attending, in November 2016.

New course….Metals and Energy Finance

We’re launching a brand-new, modular course in mining and energy finance.

This courses identifies and examines the investment opportunities offered across the extractive industry’s cycle, from exploration through evaluation, pre-production, development and production.  The course addresses the similarities of a range of mineral and petroleum projects while identifying their key differences.

Presented by: Professor Dennis Buchanan, Emiritus Professor of Mining Geology at Imperial College London. His successful past courses have included the long-standing ‘Introduction to Mining for Bankers’ and ‘Mineral Project Appraisal & Finance’.

If you would like further information, please contact cpd@imperial.ac.uk or visit www.imperial.ac.uk/cpd/mef

Second Order Analysis & Design of Steel Structures

Calling all Engineers!! 

On the 20th July 2015, we will be running a BRAND NEW course – Second Order Analysis & Design of Steel Structures.  The director, Professor Leroy Gardner (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) described the course as “presenting a comprehensive treatment of the second order analysis and design of steel structures”.

Course participants will be provided with an overview of the provisions of Eurocode 3, an explanation of the various types of structural analysis and conventional design to Eurocode 3 will be covered. Emphasis will then be placed on advanced analysis and design techniques including the treatment of frame and member imperfections, second order P-∆ and P-δ effects and the interpretation of analysis results.

Make your own Android App course!

On Saturday the 15th of March 2015, we launched our ‘Introduction to Mobile Android Development’ course, right here at our South Kensington Campus.  The course was directed and taught by Imperial alumna and Google Engineer, Aga Madurska. Here she gives an account of the day and what future attendees can expect when it’s next run:

“Design, Code, Test, Repeat!  Saturday was a busy day – we ran our first course on Android development and introduced the participants to the basics of coding and building mobile apps. The main aim of the course was to make it clear that anyone, anywhere can create and publish an Android mobile application – it really isn’t that complicated and there are plenty of resources out there to help you.