I am grateful to Emeritus Professor Patrick Corbett for his support in so many ways in promoting awareness of our University’s history and connections. A few weeks ago, I mentioned his excellent Heritage Tour of Edinburgh and today I wanted to flag his role in arranging for a visiting poet Alyson Hallett to spend a week with us exploring the Lyell Centre, BGS and the campus. She has written a series of poems about her encounter, which have been collated in a book called Tilted Ground and will be launched at a Watt Club meeting on 20 May. You can hear my favourite poem in the book in my introduction to the book launch in this short video blog.

Speaking of Tilted Ground, we have been doing a lot of breaking ground recently with the construction of The National Robotarium on our Edinburgh campus. I’m delighted to say work is progressing well towards constructing the stunning building you may have seen in the artist’s impressions, as we move closer to creating our new Global Research Institute. We have a time lapse video of the work so far – please take a look at how it is shaping up and how the classic Spring weather in Scotland can change in a heartbeat!

As we work together stepping through each day of the pandemic recovery, change is occurring across the campuses in very different ways. This week has seen the sudden closure, once again, of the Malaysia campus due to COVID restrictions being put in place. While this is not what any of us had hoped for, I am grateful to everyone for their strength and resilience in dealing with this setback, and to colleagues across our other campuses in assisting and supporting where required during this time. And at a point when we have just been celebrating the opening of our new campus in Dubai, it demonstrates both the differences between our locations and yet our similarities as we face each situation together and as one University. We know that significant uncertainties exist as we look ahead, including in student recruitment as most regular timelines and processes have been perturbed. Colleagues in our India office have been especially and badly affected and our thoughts and best wishes are with them, along with our many students, alumni and prospective Indian students and their families.

Eid Mubarak to all those across our Heriot-Watt community who are celebrating Eid-al-Fitr around the world – our colleagues, students, alumni and friends.

Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor