A major new research partnership will be launched today in a bid to ensure Scotland's future as a driving force in engineering.
The collaboration between 10 Scottish universities including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Aberdeen and Dundee has received financial backing from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) which will invest £26.5m over the next five years.
A further £100m will be invested by the participating universities, which will pool their expertise, resources and industry connections to create a world class centre for engineering research. The Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPE) will bring together an academic community of more than 730 staff with a research income in excess of £23m.
Professor Anton Muscatelli, chairman of SRPE's strategy board and Principal of Heriot-Watt University, said: "This project will bring together some of the best minds in engineering to ensure that Scotland maintains its position at the forefront of this increasingly competitive field.
"Scotland has a reputation for world-leading research and industrial applications in a wide range of fields of engineering and historically Scotland has been at the centre of the development of engineering. As the field moves into new and challenging areas this partnership will help to ensure that we remain at the forefront of research and innovation."
The other universities taking part are Heriot-Watt, Napier, Glasgow Caledonian, Paisley and Robert Gordon.
Three of Scotland's universities are among the 100 best higher education institutions in the the world, according to a new set of global rankings.
An international league table published today has ranked Edinburgh University as No 23 in the world, the highest-placed Scottish university and 10 places higher than it was last year.
St Andrews University is the second-highest ranked Scottish university climbing into the top 100 for the first time from 109th last year to 76th. Glasgow University, which made it into the top 100 for the first time last year, has dropped from 81st to 83rd in the tables, published by the Times Higher Education Supplement.
Overall, the figures show that Britain is closing in on the US. While Harvard in the US retains first place, Oxford has moved up to join Cambridge in joint second.
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