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Dr Kirsty Conlon is Head of Learning & Teaching and Widening Access at Universities Scotland. Kirsty is working with three Principals from across the sector to deliver universities’ response to the Blueprint for Fair Access, published in 2016. Kirsty writes: “March 2017 marks a year since the Blueprint for Fair Access was published by Dame…

Gisele Alves is two years into a PhD in Civil Engineering at Glasgow Caledonian University. Gisele is Brazilian and recently spoke about her reasons for choosing to study in Scotland, and the visa challenges facing her, at a Universities Scotland fringe event at the Scottish Conservatives Party Conference in early March. Gisele said: “When I was…

Lizzy Jenkins is a fourth-year student at the University of St Andrews. She’s from Kirkcaldy, Fife, and is studying Psychology. She went to St Andrews after taking part in various access programmes and is now a student ambassador for other prospective students from underrepresented backgrounds. Lizzy says: “I want to start of by saying a…

On 22 November 2016, Universities Scotland held their annual reception in the Garden Lobby of the Scottish Parliament. To read more about the event, please read our preview of the event. Universities Scotland were delighted to have the Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, Shirley-Anne Somerville address our guests. Her speech from our reception…

Mahatma Gandhi once said: “The future depends on what you do in the present” and that’s the message that Scottish universities will be delivering to assembled guests, parliamentarians and the Higher Education and Science Minister on Tuesday 22 November at the Scottish Parliament. The future is uncertain: it’s believed that 65% of children who are…

Ulrike Peter, Senior Policy Officer (International) here at Universities Scotland discusses a brand new publication, Guidance for Universities on Providing Asylum Seekers and Refugees with Access to Higher Education. The guidance is a collaborative effort between the Scottish Refugee Council and heads of admissions from a range of Scottish universities.  Forms. They are a universal element of applying to a…

Dame Ruth Silver led the work of the Commission on Widening Access over 2015-16 and its final report, A Blueprint for Fairness. The Blueprint, published in March this year, made 32 recommendations focused on widening access to university and reaching the First Minister’s aspiration that a child born in 2015 in the most deprived areas of…

Our Director, Alastair Sim, has written an extended piece for The Scotsman’s ‘Scotland’s future series’, considering the EU Referendum. Alastair considers the impact losing EU funding could have on scientific research in his piece first published on Thursday,  26 May.  Alastair: David Lurie is working on the next generation of MRI scanner. A scanner so…

Heather Alexander is Marketing Manager at Interface, the knowledge connection for organisations to universities and research institutions for the support they need to create and develop new products, services and processes. This free and impartial service has been designed to save businesses time and money in finding an academic partner and it has already helped hundreds of…

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Siddharthan Chandran is the MacDonald Professor of Neurology at the University of Edinburgh and Director of both the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.  Professor Chandran works in the emerging discipline of Regenerative Neurology, combining laboratory and clinical research to understand and work towards new therapies…