Scholarships provide a wonderful way to change lives and empower communities and I am very proud of our mission in this area.
In keeping with our desires to open access and opportunity, Heriot-Watt has a long history of raising support to enable learners from a range of different circumstances to transform their lives through studying with us. Scholarships come from a whole range of places and are deployed for a variety of reasons. The University creates a few ourselves by discounting fees or providing maintenance support to recognise special personal circumstances or individual excellence. Scholarships may also originate from endowments from corporations or trusts, or from individuals donors or legacies.
Recently we have been working hard to streamline our scholarships offering to learners and to connect and simplify our processes. This is managed by Steve Watson, Head of the Global Students Office. The team manage over 400 scholarship opportunities each year, and there are also some specialist locally administered schemes in Dubai and Malaysia. £6m a year is managed in fee and stipend scholarships.
There are so many stories of how our staff connect and create opportunities for others. One such story was created earlier this year through our Development and Alumni Office when, through connections with the Scottish Government, funds from the Edinburgh Business School (EBS) were leveraged to create 10 flexible online MBAs for women in Zambia.
The University has many alumni in Zambia and the government there is keen on focussing representation of women in government and business leadership roles. Through this partnership, we are empowering more Zambian women to take on senior roles and playing our part in addressing underrepresentation. With over 700 EBS alumni and 400 active students in Zambia, our presence continues to grow and this is another existing chapter for Heriot-Watt in Zambia.
A second story lies in Malaysia where a graduate who developed his skills in construction and building at Heriot-Watt built a significant business and recently provided £1million as a gift to the University to support scholarships for opening access and growing excellence for Malaysian students, including provision for them to experience our GoGlobal schemes. What a wonderful, life-changing gift!
There is a story behind and ahead of every one of our undergraduate, graduate and research scholarships. They demonstrate our values – look out for a story you can pass on and be proud of.
My thanks to Thomas Kelly, Steve Watson and the wider scholarship team for creating such opportunities.
Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor