Heriot-Watt wins national award for powering purposeful partnerships
Heriot-Watt University has won the Outstanding Engagement with Business Award at the Herald Education Awards 2025, celebrating the university’s distinctive approach to working with business, government and industry on solutions to global challenges.
The award highlights the university's success in building long-term, high-value collaborations with businesses of all sizes, ranging from quantum technologies to net zero innovation. Through Heriot-Watt's business and enterprise platform, GRID (Global Research, Innovation and Discovery), the university brings together academic expertise, industry need and real-world application to deliver economic growth and societal impact.
One of the lesser-known superpowers of universities is our convening power. It’s not just about what we achieve on our own, but how we bring together government, industry and researchers to address global challenges. Through evolving and growing partnerships, we shape innovation that’s not only commercially successful, but also socially and environmentally responsible. That’s how we help build the kind of future-focused technology clusters the UK needs, ensuring innovation delivers public value and meaningful societal impact.
Standout examples of Heriot-Watt’s approach include a spin-in partnership with Celestia UK, which has helped establish Edinburgh as a hub for their space communications and secure satellite technology. The University’s spin-out initiative Let’s Do Engineering is also shaping future talent pipelines by addressing STEM gender stereotypes at the earliest stage. Meanwhile, the Integrated Quantum Networking Hub and National Robotarium show how Heriot-Watt is helping industries apply cutting-edge technologies to today’s business challenges.
In addition to the main award, Heriot-Watt was highly commended in the Research Project of the Year category for Justisigns2 and SILENT HARM, led by Professor Jemina Napier. These bilingual projects are transforming how Deaf women access support services across the UK, improving accessibility and service delivery through collaborative, inclusive research.
The Herald Education Awards, now in their tenth year, celebrate excellence across the Scottish education sector. Heriot-Watt’s double recognition this year underlines the university’s role as a trusted partner in delivering innovation, impact, and inclusive economic growth.
Want to work with us? Contact the Global Research Innovation and Discovery team at GRID@hw.ac.uk.
Contact
Scott Holmes
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