His Excellency Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qatami, Minister of Education, United Arab Emirates attends Heriot-Watt inauguration

Dubai, September 23, 2013: HIS Excellency Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qatami, Minister of Education, United Arab Emirates attended the official inauguration of the second phase of Heriot-Watt University Dubai campus.

His Excellency was joined at the prestigious event by several leading dignitaries including Lord Green, the UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment.

Professor Steve Chapman, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Heriot-Watt University and Professor Ammar Kaka, Head of Heriot-Watt University Dubai Campus, greeted His Excellency Humaid Mohamed Obaid Al Qatami and Lord Green on site before taking them on a tour of the new development at Academic City.

Heriot-Watt's AED100million new structure features on-campus accommodation along with a variety of other student services that creates further added value to both local and international scholars.

The accommodation blocks are separate for male and female students, each have five floors featuring 16 rooms per floor with a total of 160 rooms.

Further to this there's an auditorium with seating for 700 along with a host of leisure facilities, an extensive food court as well as a coffee house, shop and beauty salon.

Professor Steve Chapman, Principal and Vice-chancellor of Heriot-Watt University Dubai Campus, added: "The official opening is the realisation of a lot of planning and hard work for the university.

"The Dubai campus, with its 3500 students across a variety of disciplines, is of great importance to Heriot-Watt University's international expansion.

"We look forward to building on success here with the opening of Phase 2 and to offering an enhanced student experience."

It's the latest expansion plan in the interesting story for the university, with recognised Scottish roots, which has evolved dramatically since it was first established in the Gulf eight years ago.

Back in 2005 camels roamed the car park of Dubai International Academic City but the landscape looks considerably different now following an impressive investment and growth strategy.

The continued evolution allows the university to further meet demand for places.

The university is launching a number of PhD programmes in an effort to develop research capability at the campus.

This effort will also include leading and hosting international professional and research conferences, such as the International Psychology Conference Dubai which will take place on November, 1^st this year.

The university is also looking forward to offering the highly demanded and fourth of its fundamental Engineering subject areas; a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering with a focus on Petroleum, Oil & Gas.

Last September the University experienced a 66% increase in international students intake with that figure expected to rise again this year.

Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Campus started in Dubai International Academic City in 2005 and its AED200m, state-of-the-art venue was opened in November 2011 by Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond.

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