A Closing Message
Thank you for reading this year’s impact report—I hope you enjoyed it. As you’ll have gathered, it has been an exciting and busy year for Heriot-Watt University and our global community of friends, supporters, and alumni, and we owe many of our successes to you.
For a start, Heriot-Watt University achieved its highest-ever rise in the annual Complete University Guide rankings, climbing an impressive 17 places to secure 25th position in the UK. This leap places Heriot-Watt ahead of several prestigious Russell Group institutions and reflects the quality of the student experience across the University, the dedication of our staff, and the strength of our global community.
Likewise, our Shaping Futures campaign has enabled and catalysed huge developments in both research and innovation. On 5th June we launched our Global Research Institute in Heath and Care Technologies, ushering in a new era of healthcare engineering and cross-sector collaboration, while Heriot-Watt Malaysia’s EmPOWER Programme was named a finalist for the prestigious PIEoneer Awards 2025, positioning the University alongside some of the world’s most forward-thinking institutions, including Capliano University in Canada, the Royal College of Art in the UK, and the University of Hong Kong.
“Our Shaping Futures campaign has enabled and catalysed huge developments in both research and innovation."
Professor Richard A. Williams CBE
We also won the Outstanding Engagement with Business Award at the Herald Education Awards 2025, demonstrating once again the commitment to collaborating with business and industry partners that drives the “Innovate with Business and Industry” theme of our Shaping Futures campaign. In our School of Social Sciences, meanwhile, Professor Jamina Napier’s research projects, Justisigns 2 and SILENT HARM, won the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) 2025 Impact Award.
Behind all the award-winning research, we’ve been working steadily on developing and implementing Strategy 2035, the University’s strategic framework. Several key milestones are already approaching, including review sessions, sprint days, and governance checkpoints, all of which are designed to ensure our strategic progression remains true to our founding principles and aspirational priorities.
However, while it has been a year of successes and thrilling developments, we have also encountered great sorrow: in June 2025, our Chancellor, Professor Emeritus Sir Geoff Palmer, passed away. Sir Geoff was a hero to me and to many others across the world, and he will be greatly missed. My thoughts are with his friends, his wife Margaret, and his children and grandchildren.
It was my great pleasure to meet and speak with many of you over the past year at events across the globe. Such meetings are wonderful reminders of the importance of our work here at Heriot-Watt University, and I’m looking forward to many more such encounters in the coming academic year.
Thank you again for reading and, of course, for all that you do to support Heriot-Watt University, our researchers, and our students. Together, we are shaping the future.
Professor Richard A. Williams CBE Principal and Vice-Chancellor
