Like everyone else, I was shocked at the killing of George Floyd in the US city of Minneapolis. I have been humbled by the wave of protests which have followed in the US, the UK and across the world. I was pleased to see the traction our own support for Black Lives matter received from our social media statements. If any evidence were needed for further reform in the UK’s university sector, it was presented last October in the report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry into Racial harassment in higher education. At Heriot-Watt we are proud to be global in our outlook and international in our ethos – and I acknowledge we still have work to do to properly represent the diversity within our community. Our Strategy 2025 puts our values at the front and centre of everything we do and the Black Lives Matter movement is a timely reminder that in this time of change we must not only create a sustainable institution, it must be fair and representative too. The University Executive and I am sure it’s governing body The Court will work tirelessly to deliver this.

Amidst all the flux of new activity let’s take a moment to pause to recognise our achievement in climbing into the UK’s top thirty UK universities according to the latest Complete University Guide 2021 rankings. This is testament to our hard work in developing our student experience, teaching and research performance across Heriot-Watt, and sees us move up 6 places to 29th in the UK and 5th in Scotland. NSS scores are a critical element in this positioning. We are continuing to climb the QS world rankings to 301st with particularly positive results in our international performance. I’d like to thank everyone for your contribution, which is particularly impressive given the level of competition in the sector.

Our learning environment is critical to delivering a modern flexible learning environment for our students and maintaining our competitive offering. Our current circumstances make this week’s Learning and Teaching Week especially relevant. It has an impressive and fascinating programme and I hope many will have chance to participate in the programme and the very creative ‘Bite Size Learning’ sessions. Great thanks to the Learning Teaching Academy and so many colleagues for their delivery of such an enticing programme. This is one of the most important ways for our Heriot-Watt community to maintain our edge and keep ahead of the challenges we are facing in delivering a truly immersive blended learning experience for our students. I am exploring giving one of the guest ‘Learning Episodes’ to students on the new Digital Foundation Programme this week in the Chemistry module. I will let you know how it goes!

One of the great attributes of Heriot-Watt’s successes in recent years has been the dedication to partnership working across the institution. This is particularly true with our Student Union, and in my video call this week, I have been able to reflect on the benefits this close working relationship has brought with the new Scottish campuses Student President Emily King and her predecessor Kieran Robson Renner, whom she replaced just a few days ago. In the call, it is clear the workload of the student sabbatical team has never been greater due to COVID-19 – and so is the impact they are having in shaping University policy and action in the response we are making. I was not able to promise Emily her in-tray will get smaller any time soon, but I am able to assure her the influence she and her team exert in the next few weeks will be instrumental in shaping the student experience for the next academic year and beyond. We all look forward to working closely with the new student representatives across all the campus locations.

I was pleased that over 700 staff were able to attend live sessions to listen to and discuss a Financial Briefing from me and our Global Director of Finance, Andrew Jefferson. The talk can be seen via our staff SharePoint site. Thanks to those who have made suggestions about the future and please watch out for further information via Staff Newsletter and on the Finance site.

Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor