Heriot-Watt is investing £10 million to increase its academic staff by 50 per cent, boosting teaching and research in business and technology in order to become a ‘world-leading’ university within ten years. The first phase will cost £2 million and bring 25 new appointments. The university is already Scotland’s most international institution, with a campus in Dubai and a total of 12,000 students in approved learning centres overseas or taking distance learning courses.

Heriot-Watt also produces more graduates than any of its rivals north of the border in the physical sciences, mathematics, engineering and in the built environment. Concentration on these areas is fitting for a university which commemorates James Watt, the pioneer of steam power, and George Heriot, financier to King James VI. It has fostered interdisciplinary teaching and research, with a battery of employment-related degrees.

Heriot-Watt is also one of the most commercially diversified universities in Britain, with the share of private research funding consistently among the highest in the UK per member of academic staff. About half of the university’s income, around £60 million, comes from research, training and commercial services.

Research

More than half of the work in a larger-than-average submission for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise was rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Maths produced by far the best results, but there were good grades, too, in petroleum engineering, physics, general engineering, the built environment and art and design. The last institutional review of the university’s quality, in 2006, produced the top grade of “broad confidence”. Heriot-Watt has also done well in the Languages National Student Survey, with languages and chemistry producing the highest levels of satisfaction in 2008.

The main campus, close to Edinburgh Airport and 20 minutes drive from the city centre, still has a modern feel more than 40 years after it opened. The university remains small in terms of full-time students – there are about 7,000 on the Riccarton campus, with another 1,000 in Dubai taking business, science, engineering or technology courses. Overseas students also fill a third of the places in Scotland. Heriot-Watt won the Scottish Council of Development and Industry’s 2007 award for Outstanding International Achievement in Scotland’s Universities, partly for its support for international students.

Science, engineering, management and languages are located on the Edinburgh campus. There is a postgraduate campus in Orkney, specialising in renewable energy, and a Scottish Borders Campus in Galashiels, 35 miles south of Edinburgh, which specialises in textiles, fashion, textiles design and management. Heriot-Watt and Borders College have signed a partnership agreement for a long-term collaboration to deliver higher and further education in the historically underprovided region. Both institutions will share the site from 2009.

Subjects

The subject mix serves graduates well: Heriot-Watt is seldom far from the top of the employment league tables. The latest projected dropout rate of less than 12 per cent is an improvement on previous figures, bringing the rate below the UK average for the university’s subjects and entrance qualifications. More than half of the undergraduates are from Scotland, and 15 per cent from other parts of Britain, over 90 per cent of them from state schools and colleges.

Location and facilities

The Edinburgh campus has an attractive parkland setting, with the students’ union at its heart and halls of residence conveniently placed. Students have complained that the six-mile journey to the city centre leaves them isolated, but there are now frequent bus services. Sports enthusiasts are well provided for, and representative teams do well. Hearts, one of Edinburgh’s two SPL clubs, have their sports academy on campus, which is used by students and local people as well as the young professionals. Music also thrives: there is a professional musician-in-residence and a number of scholarships, as well as a varied programme of events.

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