Imperial College denies campus at Nawaz Sharif IT City in Lahore
Pakistan
Imperial College London denies Punjab government's claim of opening a Lahore campus, confirming all its campuses are UK-based. Provincial posts making the claim have been deleted.
LAHORE (Web Desk) - Imperial College London has categorically denied claims by the Punjab government that it is opening a campus in Lahore's Nawaz Sharif IT City, stating that all of its campuses remain exclusively in the United Kingdom.
On October 18, the PML-N shared a post on its official X (formerly Twitter) account quoting Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, saying that Imperial College would open a campus in Lahore and that a 300-bed hospital would be part of the project, with the foundation stone scheduled to be laid in November.
— PMLN (@pmln_org) October 18, 2025
Similar announcements were echoed by Punjab’s Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and the Punjab government's official X account. However, those posts have since been deleted.
Imperial College London, in a statement published on its official website, refuted the reports, calling them "incorrect."
“There have been erroneous reports in the media and online that Imperial is opening a campus at Nawaz Sharif IT City in Lahore, Pakistan. Imperial has no such plans, with all the university’s campuses based in the UK,” the statement said. The university directed interested parties to its International Relations Office for verified information.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Central Business District (CBD), a provincial department overseeing urban development, clarified that the project in question is a partnership between NovaCare and the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT), an independent UK-based NHS institution, not the university itself.
— Javed Hassan (@javedhassan) October 21, 2025
“The upcoming healthcare university and medical college is a collaborative initiative between NovaCare and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (UK),” the CBD’s statement read, reaffirming that the project is still moving forward.
Former NAVTTC chairman and Imperial College alumnus, Javed Hassan, also weighed in, calling the initial claims surprising.
“As an alumnus, I was briefly bemused by the bold claim. Turns out Imperial is less adventurous — its campus plans remain firmly UK-bound,” he posted on X, calling for better verification before official announcements.
