Heriot Watt University
 |
|
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Established | 1821 – as the School of Arts of Edinburgh 1966 – as university by Royal Charter |
| Endowment | £ 9.5 m(2015) |
| Chancellor | Robert M Buchan |
| Principal | Richard Williams |
| Chairman of Court | Frances Cairncross |
|
Administrative staff
|
1,737 |
| Students | Global: 31,000 Edinburgh: 10,460 (2015/16) |
| Undergraduates | Edinburgh: 7,135 (2015/16) |
| Postgraduates | Edinburgh: 3,325 (2015/16) |
| Location | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Campus | Suburban |
| Other campus locations |
Scottish Borders Orkney Dubai Malaysia |
| Affiliations | Association of Commonwealth Universities, CESAER |
| Website | www.hw.ac.uk |
|
QS (2016/17, national) |
41 | |
|---|---|---|
|
QS (2016/17, world) |
327 | |
|
THE (2016/17, national) |
52 | |
|
THE (2016/17, world) |
401–500 | |
|
CWTS Leiden (2016, world) |
388 | |
|
Complete (2017, national) |
34 | |
|
The Guardian (2017, national) |
27 | |
|
Times/Sunday Times (2017, national) |
37= | |
Heriot-Watt University is a public university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the world's first mechanics' institute (Royal Charter granted in 1966). It has campuses in the Scottish Borders, Orkney, Dubai, and Putrajaya in Malaysia.
The university is ranked among the World's Top 500 by both Times Higher Education World University Rankings (401-500) and QS World University Rankings (327).
Heriot-Watt was established as the School of Arts of Edinburgh by Scottish businessman Leonard Horner on 16 October 1821. Having been inspired by Anderson's College in Glasgow, Horner established the School to provide practical knowledge of science and technology to Edinburgh's working men. The institution was initially of modest size, giving lectures two nights a week in rented rooms and boasting a small library of around 500 technical works. It was also oversubscribed, with admissions soon closing despite the cost of 15 shillings for a year's access to lectures and the library.
The School was managed by a board of eighteen directors and primarily funded by sponsors from the middle and upper classes including Robert Stevenson and Walter Scott. It first became associated with the inventor and engineer James Watt in 1824, as a means of raising funds to secure permanent accommodation. Justifying the association, School Director Lord Cockburn said:
"[The building] shall be employed for the accommodation of the Edinburgh School of Arts; whereby the memory of Watt may forever be connected with the promotion, among a class of men to which he himself originally belonged, of those mechanical arts from which his own usefulness and glory arose. "
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