Heriot-Watt University Dubai to expand
A separate campus will be built says newly-appointed vice-chancellor
“Our ambition is to grow,” said new Heriot-Watt University vice-chancellor Professor Steve Chapman when he recently visited the institution’s Dubai campus.
Chapman, who took the helm in September, said the Dubai campus currently has 1,300 students — a growth of 30 per cent since last year — and has outgrown its accommodation.
“We’re going to build our own campus that would be in Dubai International Academic City (DIAC), not far from where we are.” The university is discussing the purchase of a piece of land, Chapman added.
Focus areas
In addition to building larger premises, the Dubai campus will focus on “serious research” by introducing PhD programmes, said Chapman. “Heriot-Watt is a research-led university and we would like to see that developing in Dubai.”
He said Heriot-Watt’s areas of expertise — petroleum engineering, built environment, fashion, water research — are all things Dubai’s economy needs and these programmes would be brought to the Dubai campus.
Other areas the Dubai campus will focus on in the near future include:
- Renting more space at their current DIAC premises
- Increasing merit-based scholarships including sports, engineering and the physical sciences
- Frontline student services by increasing student societies and clubs
- Growing alumni base and their interaction with the university after graduation
- Increasing the Dubai campus’s staff base and the number of people in teaching.
Eye on India
When asked if the university had plans on building campuses elsewhere in the world, Chapman said the demand from India is huge.
“At the moment Indian law won’t allow universities from opening in the country, though this may change to allow universities to establish their own campuses there.”
He said the middle classes in India want a UK education but don’t necessarily want to travel there to get it. “That’s how the Dubai model has worked. Many students wanted UK degrees but their parents were based in Dubai so they chose to stay close to the family business.”
At the Helm
Professor Steve Chapman, who took over Heriot-Watt University as vice-chancellor in September this year, came from the University of Edinburgh where he was vice-principal for planning, resources and research policy.
Chapman received his PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1983. He then moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) fellowship. In 1986, he returned to the UK to take up a lectureship at the University of Edinburgh.
In 2001 he received the Interdisciplinary Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, for his work at the interface of chemistry and biology. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and has given numerous lectures at international conferences. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
