Heriot-Watt University | Rankings, fees, campus, and more

Heriot-Watt University – Overview

Heriot-Watt University is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland, established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh. It was the world’s first mechanics institute and was subsequently granted university status by a royal charter in 1966. It is the eighth-oldest higher education institute in the UK. The name Heriot-Watt comes from Scottish philanthropist and goldsmith George Heriot and Scottish inventor James Watt.

History

Leonard Horner, a Scottish businessman, founded The School of Arts of Edinburgh. Horner aimed to provide practical knowledge of science and technology to Edinburgh’s working class. The institution started small and only offered lectures two nights a week in rented rooms. It boasted a small library of around 500 technical works. A board of eighteen directors managed the school. Sponsors from the middle and upper classes, including Robert Stevenson and Walter Scott, funded it initially, and James Watt offered funding for permanent accommodation in 1824. Because of this, the school changed its name to the Watt Institution and School of Arts in 1852. The Watt Institution officially became Heriot-Watt College in 1885 and was on far firmer financial ground. After the institution created a postgraduate degree in 1951, it began to offer highly comparable degrees to university degrees and doctorates. The Robbins Report proposed to give it university status in 1963. The recommendation became official on February 1, 1966, when the institution changed its name to Heriot-Watt University.

Ranking

In 2020, Heriot-Watt was ranked 314 by QS World University Rankings and 251-300 by Times Higher Education World University Rankings worldwide.

Campuses

Heriot-Watt currently has five campuses. It also runs distance learning programs through 53 learning partners for students worldwide.

Edinburgh

Located in Riccarton in South West Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt’s main campus is 380 acres (150 hectares) of parkland. Along with the Student Union’s primary location, the campus is home to academic buildings, student housing, a postgraduate center, shops, several library collections, daycare, healthcare, a chaplaincy, various recreational and sports facilities, a museum, and several other buildings. The Edinburgh Conference Centre and Heriot-Watt University Research Park, Europe’s first research park, call this city home. The university’s Edinburgh campus is home to the Institute of Petroleum Engineering.

Scottish Borders

The School of Textile and Design at Heriot-Watt University is in Galashiels, Scotland, on the Scottish Borders Campus. In 1883, the year the school was established, the Galashiels Manufacturer’s Corporation began providing classes in practical courses for its workers. The college quickly expanded in terms of the number of students enrolled and the variety of courses it offered, and in 1968 it adopted the name Scottish College of Textiles. The present School of Textiles and Design resulted from the college’s merger with Heriot-Watt in 1998.

Dubai

The Dubai Campus of Heriot-Watt was inaugurated in 2005. Dubai International Academic City was the first British university to open. The Campus promotes student exchanges between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates by providing a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses comparable to those found in Scotland. It features a library, restaurants, shopping, and computer access. In November 2011, a larger campus in the city opened, enabling two times as many students to pursue a Heriot-Watt degree there.

Malaysia

The country’s first “green campus,” Heriot-Watt University Malaysia’s purpose-built campus, opened in Putrajaya in September 2014. With an investment of £35 million, it has 1.9 hectares (4 acres) of land, is next to a lake, and grants both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Orkney

The International Centre for Island Technology (ICIT), a division of the university’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure, and Society, is located on the Heriot-Watt campus in Stromness, Orkney. A modest number of postgraduate students receive their education at the Campus, which also houses eight research staff members.

First Online Business School 

Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh Business School created the first global online business education. In 1990, Professor Keith Lumsden introduced the first MBA program offered anywhere in the world that could be completed entirely through self-contained course materials and without attending any on-campus lectures.

Well-known Alumni

• Theodore S. Clerk (1909–1965), city planner, the first Ghanaian architect, and developer of the port city of Tema
• Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith (born 1927), conservation architect and head of ECA’s Department of Architecture 1978–1988
• Sir Nicholas Grimshaw (born 1939), architect of the Eden Project, president of the Royal Academy since 2004
• Sir William Kininmonth (1904–1988), architect of Adam House and Pollock Halls, both in Edinburgh
• Kygo, Norwegian DJ and record producer
• Sir Robert Matthew (1906–1975) designed the Royal Commonwealth Pool and founded RMJM.
• John McAslan, architect
• Taqi Nazeer, Scottish-born actor
• Patrick Nuttgens (1930–2004), academic and writer on architecture
• Nivetha Pethuraj, an Indian actress
• Dame Muriel Spark, British writer (took a course in commercial correspondence and précis writing at Heriot-Watt College)
• Sir Basil Spence (1907–1976), architect of Coventry Cathedral and the New Zealand Parliament Building (nicknamed ‘The Beehive’) in Wellington, New Zealand
• Douglas Stuart, British writer, fashion designer, and winner of the 2020 Booker Prize
• John Thomson, a pioneering photographer
• Deepak Tripathi, historian, and former journalist
• Irvine Welsh, the British writer of the novel Trainspotting
• Greg Wise, British actor, and producer
• Joanne Yeoh, Malaysian violinist and music lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia
• Gary Younge, writer, and journalist
• Iain Baikie, physicist, winner of Swan Medal and Prize
• Christina Miller, chemist
• David A. B. Miller, applied physicist; winner of the R. W. Wood Prize and Adolph Lomb Medal
• James Nasmyth, inventor of the steam hammer
• Evelyn Roxburgh (1896–1973), electrical engineer
• Sarah Tabrizi, neurologist
• Chris Whitty, physician; Chief Medical Advisor to the UK Government
• Jock Clear, Formula One engineer
• Keith “Swaz” Fraser, Olympic skier (graduated 1991 with MEng in Civil Engineering)
• Lee Jones, a current member of the Scotland national rugby union team
• Shirley Robertson, TV presenter, and double Olympic gold medallist
• Jack Ross, British professional footballer
• Gordon Shedden, British auto racing driver

Key takeaways

• Heriot-Watt has a global reach with its 5 campuses.
• Heriot-Watt University takes pride in being the first online MBA-offering institution.
• Nationally, the university is ranked highly for Planning and Building education. In 2019, the university was ranked 4th in UK and 1st in Scotland for Town & Country Planning and Landscape Design by The Complete University Guide.

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FAQs

Q1. Does Heriot-Watt offer an MBA? 

Ans- Yes, Heriot-Watt offers an online MBA for its global students. 

Q2. Does Heriot-Watt University provide accommodation? 

Ans- Yes, Heriot-Watt university Edinburgh campus offers accommodation. 

Q3. What is the World Ranking of Heriot-Watt University?

Ans- Heriot-Watt University is one of the oldest higher education universities in the United Kingdom. Heriot-Watt University has been ranked by QS World University Rankings 2022 at #270, Times Higher Education (THE) University Ranking at #501-600, and The Guardian University Rankings at #36. Know more about the latest university rankings on our website, Heriot-Watt University Rank 2022.