Heriot Watt named Scottish University of the Year for 2011/2012

My current employer, Heriot Watt University, was recently named Scottish University of the Year for 2011/2012. Check out the university press release here.

I think my view of HW is always heavily coloured by having spent time at Edinburgh University first—it is certainly smaller in terms of the number of people/the name recognition, and it can be easy to forget that it has many first-rate people doing influential work (in my own main area of technology-enhanced learning, I’d like to give a shout-out here to Ruth Aylett and Judy Robertson, both of whom I greatly admire). Unfortunately, it is impossible to forget that it is dominated by extremely unfortunate 1960’s architecture.

Lacking the (sometimes totally undeserved!) name value of the University of Edinburgh, HW is working hard to be The Little University that Could. In several subjects the most recent university rankings have placed them very close to the top in all of the UK (I think chemistry is one of those). Furthermore, they are aggressively expanding their international presence, with a campus in Dubai and another just confirmed to begin construction at the invitation of the Malaysian government.

So, congratulations from me to HW and to all the people who are helping to make it successful in these times of very tough funding—the students keep coming, and so do the research dollars pounds/euros!