Heriot-Watt University is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. The university traces its origins to the School of Arts established in 1821. Heriot-Watt was granted full university status by the Scottish Government in 1966 and took its name from George Heriot and James Watt, two of Scotland’s most famous scientific figures.
Today, Heriot-Watt is ranked as one of the top 200 universities in the world and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities. The university has around 19,000 students from over 100 countries enrolled on undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes across its five Edinburgh campuses.
The main campus is located at Riccarton, west of Edinburgh city centre. It is home to the schools of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure & Society; Life Sciences; Management & Languages; and Mathematical & Computer Sciences. The other four campuses are located at Orkney (School of Petroleum Engineering), Dubai (Dubai International Academic City), Malaysia (Putrajaya) and Galashiels (Border Campus).
Heriot-Watt University has an excellent reputation for teaching quality and research excellence. It was ranked 1st in Scotland for Student Experience by Times Higher Education in 2016 and among the top 50 Universities worldwide for employability according to THE Global Employability Rankings 2015/16. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework exercise (2014), 84% of our research was rated as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.