Heriot-Watt opens new postgrad centre

Heriot-Watt University has officially opened a state-of-the-art centre for its 1,500-strong population of postgraduate students.

The postgraduate centre has a lecture theatre, seminar and study rooms, and socialising spaces including a staff and student cafe.

Simon Eltringham, president of the Heriot-Watt University Students' Association (HWUSA), told The Journal: “The centre is extremely well used and it is very much at the heart of the Postgraduate community. The £7m investment in this landmark building is a demonstration of the University’s commitment to the student experience.”

The construction of the Postgraduate Centre was funded by several companies and philanthropic donors, including the Wolfson Foundation, John Brydson, Dr Gavin Gemmell and Cairn Energy.

Sir Bill Gammell, chief executive of Cairn Energy, hosted a leadership lecture titled 'Winning: learning from failure', which focused on his career at the Scottish Rugby Union as well as his role as CEO of Cairn.

The lecture comes after The Journal reported on Greenpeace’s high criticism of Cairn Energy’s “reckless” oil exploration activities. The nonprofit organisation labelled Cairn Energy as the “most dangerous oil company after BP”.

Cairn Energy established a “strategic alliance” with Heriot-Watt University back in 2007. The University is known in the energy field for its postgraduate Institute of Petroleum Engineering, which has provided research that has benefited the oil and gas industries, including Cairn Energy.

Mr Eltringham maintained that “Heriot-Watt leads the way in providing a central forum for networking and expanding collaborations with industry and commercial sectors and this is extremely beneficial to our students.”

However, Heriot-Watt, like many other universities in the United Kingdom, is also publicly dedicated to environmental sustainability, with an official public Environmental Policy Statement and with many environmentally focused courses and programmes. 

This is the first building at the university dedicated to postgraduate students. It was established in an attempt to bring together a community of students who come from over 100 different countries, and to encourage social networking and an interdisciplinary approach to research at the university.