The Enterprise work going on at King’s is really exciting. You are building these collaborative partnerships, and we know that is what it takes for this work to pay off.”
Professor Sir Peter Knight FRS
22 April 2025
Great minds gather for King's Quantum Annual Symposium
Top scientific policy leads and industry voices joined a choir of King’s quantum researchers to discuss how to turbocharge the technology.
Some of the UK’s greatest scientists gathered in the Great Hall earlier this week to celebrate one hundred years of quantum science and King’s Quantum’s first Annual Symposium.
The cross-faculty event shone a light on the research and collaborative efforts happening at King’s in the quantum field, from healthcare to material science, cybersecurity, quantum computing and more.
Professor Ismael Diez-Perez, one of King’s many ‘quantum adopters’ seizing the benefits of quantum technology for his work in physical chemistry, began the day by introducing the University’s new quantum hires through the King’s Interdisciplinary Science programme.
Drs Mark Mitchison, Eleanor Crane, Joseph Cotter and Professor Roger Colbeck, who are all joining King’s in 2025, spoke about how their work on some of the universe’s smallest objects were making big strides in the areas of nanoscale clocks, batteries, navigation, cryptography and computing.
Following a talk by Physics’ Professor Joe Bhaseen and Biomedical Engineering’s Dr Adelaide de Vecchi on how quantum computing is helping to model blood flow, King’s Quantum Directors James Millen and Mohammad Mousavi spelled out their vision for an interdisciplinary, connected and impactful hub for quantum research at King’s.
Innovation is a foundational part of scientific discovery. From discovery comes societal benefit and it is the work of universities like King’s to accelerate that and take it forward – it is how we thrive.”
Professor Sir Bashir Al-Hashimi CBE FREng FRS
The audience then heard from BT’s Andrew Lord speak about the advancing place of quantum research in the private sector and the future of a quantum-enabled telecommunications network. Professor Sir Peter Knight, one of the UK’s top scientific policy leads on quantum technology, spoke in his keynote about the UK ecosystem propelling quantum technology out of the lab and into the world.
To close the day, Vice President (Research & Innovation) Professor Sir Bashir Al-Hashimi reflected on how universities convert cutting-edge discovery into societal benefit and the dynamo of discovery being driven by brilliant young minds doing exciting things.
The wide range of cutting-edge quantum research at King's was also skilfully communicated to the attendees by the University’s research students, with second-year PhD student Sophie Sanghera winning best poster for her work on levitated nanoparticles for quantum sensing.
For more on the exciting quantum research happening at King’s and the role King’s Interdisciplinary Science has to play in fostering the next generation of discovery, click here.
In this story
Reader in Advanced Photonics
Professor of Software Engineering
Vice President (Research & Innovation)
Professor of Nanochemistry
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering