Napier University

Information about Napier University

Napier University
Motto Nisi sapientia frustra (Latin: "No wisdom frustrates")
Established 1992 (founded 1964 as Napier Technical College)
Type Public
Chancellor Tim Waterstone
Principal Prof. Joan Stringer CBE
Staff 1,648 [1]
Students 14,850 [2]
Undergraduates 11,685 <ref name="HESA" />
Postgraduates 3,165 <ref name="HESA" />
Location Edinburgh, Scotland
Turnover £70 million (GBP, 2003) <ref name="facts" />
Website [1]
Napier University is a university in Edinburgh, Scotland.

History

It was opened as Napier Technical College in 1964, taking its name from John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, who was born on the site of the Merchiston campus. In 1966, it was renamed Napier College of Science and Technology. Since 1971, it has offered degree-level education. Three years later, it merged with the Sighthill-based Edinburgh College of Commerce to form Napier College of Commerce and Technology, which became a Central Institution in 1985.

The college was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and in the same year acquired the former Hydropathic hospital buildings at Craiglockhart. It gained full university status in its own right in June 1992, but only a matter of months before other former polytechnics. In 1994, Napier University acquired its Craighouse campus.

In 1996, the university gained a new Faculty of Health Studies, a merger of the Scottish Borders College of Nursing and Lothian College of Health Studies.

It is especially noted for a range of subject areas including timber engineering and transport studies, and in addition its journalism courses are considered to be of a high standard with some lecturers giving expert testimony to the Scottish Parliament. In 2002 Napier achieved top grades in Accounting, Computing and Law in the Quality Assessment Agency's new Subject Reviews, outperforming all other new Scottish Universities as well as a number of traditional ones.

During the last 2 years, NUBS (Napier University Business School) proved to be the strongest part of the University, achieving the rare CIM certification and was rated best new business school in the United Kingdom by the Guardian in 2007. The University has also achieved good marks in the Times University ranking, being seen in Scotland as the University with the highest employment opportunities after finishing a degree. Napier also tries to strenghten its international activities by having several campuses around the world and the 4th largest percentage of foreign students in the UK.

The University has one of the largest business schools of any university north of the English border. The School of Computing at Napier University is also the largest computing department in Scotland.

Napier also founded the Scottish Screen Academy together with the Edinburgh College of Arts, establishing a powerhouse in the UK film industry with Sean Connery as the Chancellor of the academy.

Future developments will include an expensive area development of the old Sighthill campus, investing around ₤80m for the renovation of the old builiding as well as for several new ones in order to enhance not only the Univeristy but also the surrounding area of Sighthill. Napier is also trying to strengthen the business school even further by enhancing the international reputation - with Napier being one of the Top5 Universities for Chinese students in the United Kingdom.

Campuses

Enlarge picture
Merchiston Castle in the early 1800s, now at the centre of the present-day Merchiston Campus, was home to John Napier
The university is based around its Merchiston, Craighouse, Craiglockhart and Sighthill campuses. There are also smaller, medical campuses at Canaan Lane's Astley Ainslie Hospital and Comely Bank in Edinburgh, as well as in Melrose and Livingston's St John's Hospital At Howden. Other notable Edinburgh buildings have been incorporated, including the former Parish Church at Morningside.

The Merchiston campus is built around the refurbished shell of Merchiston Castle, the family home of John Napier, after whom the University is named. Merchiston Castle is also the ancient seat of Clan Napier. This campus plays host to the sports, science, mathematics, engineering and computing courses.

The Napier Students' Association (NSA) is located nearby on Merchiston Place in a converted house. It houses "twelve", the student bar for Merchiston campus - which was closed for the 05-06 session, but has recently been reopened. Its hours of business are 4pm-11pm, Monday-Friday - greatly reduced from the times it was previously open for and no longer serving food.

The Craiglockhart campus incorporates the Craiglockhart Hydropathic Hospital buildings which were for a time known as the Craiglockhart War Hospital, where First World War poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon were treated. This campus is the home of the law and business courses and is also marketed as a conference centre. Tony Blair gave a speech there in 2004. The campus has recently benefited from a £24m development for the Business School at Craiglockhart. The Business School at Napier University is currently seeking EQUIS accredidation and is already certified by the Chartered Instituate of Management. The campus is seen as one of the leading campuses in Europe, offering an open-space environment and most up-to-date technology including touchscreen computers in each room. As the Napier University Business School offers a real-world business approach based around group activities and simulations, the campus offers a unique space to work outside the lectures - e.g. by offering over 200 computers, a modern on-campus library and three different cafés and restaurants including meeting space and complete wireless Internet access coverage.

The Craighouse campus is based around the former Thomas Clouston Clinic which was a mental hospital (The Royal Edinburgh Asylum) until around 1990. Its position allows for panoramic views over the entire city. This campus is home to the social science and communication arts courses as well as the Ian Tomlin School of Music.

The University has ties both locally (with colleges such as Lauder College), and globally. Napier University was the first Scottish institution to allow Chinese students to study for a Scottish degree without leaving their home country in 2004 via links with Zhengzhou University of Light Industry(ZZULI)(Simplified Chinese:郑州轻工业学院). The University also operates an office in Bejing, China and operates through articulation agreements and partnerships to deliver courses with Higher Education institutions in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Student organisation and media

Napier University's students' union is called the Napier Students' Association (NSA). The current NSA President is Aran Simm. Recent past NSA presidents include Peter Marshall (2005-06) and Christian Poziemski (2004-05). The student newspaper is Veritas and comes out 6-7 times per year. It was founded as a fortnightly tabloid newspaper in 1993 by Neil McIntosh, then Depute President (Communications). The current Veritas editors are Darren Scott Gleeson and Sarah Gray.
Their editorship has seen Veritas achieve recognition as Best Production at the annual Scottish Herald Student Press Awards. Past Veritas editors include Laura Brown (2005-06), Jesse Karjalainen (2004-05), co-editors David Lewis and Adam Morris (2003-04) and Craig McGill (1994-1995).

Academic structure

Napier University comprises three main Faculties each with three constituent schools.

The Napier University Business School comprises the School of Management & Law, the School of Accounting, Economics & Statistics, and the School of Marketing, Tourism & Languages. The Faculty of Engineering, Computing & Creative Industries comprises the School of Creative Industries, the School of Engineering & the Built Environment, and the School of Computing. The Faculty of Health, Life & Social Sciences comprises the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Care, the School of Health & Social Science, and the School of Life Sciences.

Napier also founded the Scottish Screen Academy together with the Edinburgh College of Arts, establishing a powerhouse in the UK film industry with Sean Connery as the Chancellor of the academy.

Research and activity centres

Napier has over 30 research teams operating across the University.

The Centre for Timber Engineering is a focus for excellence in providing research, consultancy, information, education and training in the use of timber in construction.

The Employment Research Institute carries out applied and theoretical research into the changing nature of work and employment.

The International Teledemocracy Centre remit is to research and apply information and communication technologies to enhance and support the democratic decision-making processes.

The Transport Research Institute is a distributed organisation, promoting cross-disciplinarily research in transport. The Centre for Distributed Computing and Security CDCS at Napier University focuses on the key issues in distributed computing and security, including: enhanced security and forensic computing systems; ad-hoc routing over wireless networks; mobile IP; intelligent intrusion detection systems; the usage of mobile agents; location-tracking of mobile devices; multicast and broadcast communications; and on device emulation. At the core of its work is the successful transfer of knowledge between the research group and professionals, along with its excellent reputation for: its depth of skills; its links with industry and in enterprise; and, in its record on dissemination. It has extensive links with industry, and has developed a novel system for an agent-based system for ad-hoc routing over wireless networks, in mobile IP systems, health care systems, and innovative methods for device tracking and in content generation. At present it is working with several organisations including the FSA FSA. The group is led by Prof Bill Buchanan who has won several awards for excellence, and was also an award winner at the KTP (Knowledge Transfer Programme) Awards 2003 and in 2004. Previous EPSRC-related work applied expert systems to industrial systems, and extensive activities in knowledge transfer from universities to industry. The EPSRC-related work implemented artificial intelligence methods to the industrial control of large turbocompressors. In the end the system used novel fuzzy logic and neural networks applications, and saved over £1million in energy savings for the industrial partner, and also drastically reduced CO2 emissions (this has been verified by independent auditors). The work could not be published because of the industrial collaboration, but had many positive results. Overall his work has been extensively done in collaboration with industry and publicly funding organisations, such as the NHS and the Scottish Police, and he is part of the Research Network for Applied Policing Research, which is an SFC/Police-funded initiative and runs from 2006 to 2011 (total proposed expenditure: £8million). The work with the Scottish Police builds on digital forensics work which is currently investigating enhanced and verifiable data gathering systems for forensic applications, and also in creating a complete framework for digital forensics, including the definition, modelling, implementation and verification of a digital forensics auditing policy. His work also relates to simulators for the teaching of networking. Other researchers in the group include: Dr Ahmed Al-Dubia, Alistair Lawson, Dr Jose Munoz, Dr John Old, Dr Imed Romdhani, Dr Gordon Russell, and Dr Christoph Thuemmler (MD).

Napier is also host to the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET), the Scottish Centre for Festival And Event Management, and the Napier University Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Commercially, Napier has developed a number of spinout companies. These include Cardiodigital, Micro Emissive Displays, Surfactant Solutions and Freelight Systems.

Office holders

Napier University's Principal and Vice-Chancellor is Professor Joan Stringer CBE.

The Chancellor is Tim Waterstone, founder of Waterstone's bookshop and chairman of HMV Media Group. He succeeded Napier's first chancellor, the late Viscount Younger of Leckie in August 2007, following his death in January 2003.

Vice-Principal of Academic Development is Dr Peter Easy. Vice-Principal of Research, Commercialisation & Knowledge Transfer is Professor Peter Strike. Vice-Principal of Academic Quality & Customer Service is Dr Jenny Rees.

Dr Andrew Cubie CBE is chairman of the University Court.

Dr Gerry Webber holds the position of University Secretary & Registrar.

Mr Colin Bryce is Special Advisor to the Vice-Principals.

Professor George Stonehouse is Dean of the Napier University Business School.

Professor Rao Bhamidimarri is Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Computing & Creative Industries.

Professor Morag Prowse is Dean of Faculty of Health, Life & Social Science.

Mr Jack Worden is Dean of International.

Director of Human Resources is Nick Rogers.

Director of Finance Services is Eric Gibson.

Alumni

See also:

References

See also

External links

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Edinburgh
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John Napier

Painting of John Napier
Born 1550
Merchiston Tower, in
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