The London Institute (officially the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences) is Britain's only independent research centre in theoretical physics and mathematics. It was founded to be an alternative to universities, where scientists have to spend time on teaching and administrative duties.[1] Instead, the Institute gives its researchers the freedom and support to devote themselves to research full-time.
The London Institute was founded in 2011 by the American physicist Thomas Fink with the encouragement of Caltech's Head of Physics, Tom Tombrello. It received early grants from DARPA and the EU’s scientific research agency.[2]
In 2019 it was awarded Independent Research Organisation status by UKRI, becoming the first independent research centre in the physical sciences to be allowed to compete with universities for funding from the seven Research Councils.[3][4]
In 2021 its researchers moved from its offices in a Grade II* listed building on South Street in Mayfair into the Royal Institution Grade II* listed building. It now occupies rooms that were once the private apartments of Sir Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday and John Tyndall, among others.[5]
Research
The London Institute does research in theoretical physics and mathematics. Its work spans four themes: Mathematics that unifies; The elegant universe; Life, learning and emergence; and the Theory of human enterprise.[6]
Its researchers have published papers on statistical physics in Nature Reviews Physics; algebraic geometry in the Journal of High Energy Physics; graph theory in the European Journal of Combinatorics; and network theory in Physical Review Letters.[7] In 2024, researcher Oleksandr Gamayun’s paper on topological solitons became the Institute’s first to be published in Nature.[8]
In 2021, the UK government announced the launch of Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), a new science agency designed to support projects that may create "a paradigm shift in science". As a roadmap for the new agency, the London Institute compiled a list of the 23 Mathematical Challenges of our time.[9][10] Inspired by David Hilbert's list of 23 challenges, 17 of which have been solved or partially resolved, the new list was intended by the Institute as a reminder to itself and others to aim high. It was published in full in The Times.[11]
Culture
In an article in The Daily Telegraph, the Director Thomas Fink argued that science is still not professionally organised but is at the same stage of development as sport was a century ago.[12] So that they can break the intellectual equivalent of world records, the London Institute gives its researchers the level of support expected by elite athletes.
As well as freeing its researchers from teaching duties, the Institute employs a support team of coders, writers, leadership coaches and experts in design and development. These help the scientists to fund their work, do better research, and spread the word about their discoveries.
Employees of the London Institute do not work from home. The reason, as explained by Director Thomas Fink in The Daily Telegraph, is that it's only when they share the same physical space that they can solve the workplace equivalent of the “stable marriage problem”, optimising the balance between interaction and solitary focus.[13]
The London Institute believes that communicating its discoveries is as important as making them.[14] With this in mind, it takes pride in its website to ensure that it is clear and compelling, both in design and the quality of its prose. In 2022, lims.ac.uk was named at the Webby Awards as one of the five best science websites in the world, alongside Science magazine and NASA Solar System Exploration.[15]
Writers at the Institute publish articles in newspapers and magazines from Nature to The Times and The Guardian, celebrating its research and values, and contributing to the debate on how to fund and carry out science.[16]
Organisation
The Director of the London Institute is the physicist Thomas Fink. Its Board of Trustees includes Martin Reeves, Global Director at Boston Consulting Group; the author and entrepreneur Talulah Riley; and the entrepreneur Florian Schuster. Scientists and non-scientists are not segregated but work closely together, so everyone is involved in funding, carrying out and communicating discoveries.[17]
Funding
As a non-university institute, the London Institute does not receive student fees or the annual core funding the British government gives to universities. Instead it has been funded by research grants from the EU's Horizon 2020, the European Innovation Council, DARPA, the US Department of Defense, the Ministry of Defence, the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK. Industry collaborations include investments from firms in strategy, biotech and AI.[18]
With the expansion of the development team in 2021, the Institute added philanthropic gifts to its funding sources. In 2022 donors helped launch the Arnold and Landau Fellowships, created to support Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian scientists affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[19][20]
Arnold and Landau Fellowships
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Institute created the Arnold and Landau Fellowships, named after the Ukrainian mathematician Vladimir Arnold and the Russian physicist Lev Landau. Consisting of ten three-year full-time positions, this is the biggest programme of its kind in the world.
Events
The theatre of the Royal Institution has hosted talks by some of the greatest minds in the history of science, from Michael Faraday to Dmitri Mendeleev. To promote its causes, and celebrate its discoveries, the London Institute contributes to the programme of events that take place in the Royal Institution’s theatre.
In 2021, the Institute's Fellows Thomas Fink and Yang-Hui He interviewed the Nobel Physics Laureate Roger Penrose in the Theatre. In 2022, the Institute hosted a two-day conference on the mathematics of cell coding, in partnership with the biotech company bit.bio.[21] In 2023, Prof He delivered a Friday Evening Discourse on how non-Euclidean geometry gave rise to modern physics.[22]
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