I was excited to learn more this week about the manufacturing and research work our School of Textiles is doing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff at our Borders campus are using their skills and expertise to make Personal Protective Equipment and medical uniforms for healthcare workers. Heriot-Watt is a leading research centre for medical textiles, and in my video call with the Head of School, Professor Fiona Waldron, you can hear how colleagues are investigating the design and construction of facemasks to improve their fit and increase the protection they provide. I’m sure the School of Textiles will play an important role in helping us develop our own plans for PPE across the University.
I have also been celebrating another manufacturing success story – with Heriot-Watt leading a new £3.7m Medical Device Manufacturing Centre as part of a consortium which includes Edinburgh, Glasgow and Robert-Gordon Universities. Professor Duncan Hand and Professor Marc Desmulliez from the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences will oversee efforts to help small and medium-sized companies bring their concepts off the drawing board through to commercial prototypes. This is evidence of universities collaborating on technology with the power to change people’s lives and it’s the kind of initiative which demonstrates the vital contribution universities will make to the economic recovery from this pandemic.
The University must also deal with the impact COVID-19 is having on its own finances, and I am grateful for the positive spirit around 700 colleagues brought to the three online briefings I led over the past week. It was good to share details of the financial landscape we are operating in, take questions and discuss the options. I will be sharing a timeline of the decision-making process shortly and I look forward to leading more sessions once the choices become clear. My aim is to be as inclusive as possible and enable everyone who wishes to be part of this process. If you want to contribute your ideas on the university’s future, please email me at suggestion4principal@hw.ac.uk A copy of the briefing materials and answers to the questions raised during the discussion will be made available soon.
During the staff sessions, I’ve said how fortunate we are to have our Strategy 2025 in place to guide us through this uncertainty and the relentless pace of the challenge it brings. I believe the initiatives, successes and behaviours I have witnessed this week are evidence the values which underpin our strategy are coming to the fore in the way our community is responding. There are just 15 weeks to the start of our new academic year, and a great deal of work will be needed before then. By sticking to our strategy and living our values, I have great confidence we will be in good shape to welcome our students back to learning in September.
Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor