Heriot-Watt announces new CEO for Malaysia Campus

Heriot-Watt University has appointed Professor Robert Craik as the Provost and CEO of its new Malaysia campus. This new flagship campus will enable students in the region to take advantage of top-level UK degrees and will provide a major centre for research.

The campus, in Putrajaya, will create opportunities for up to 4,000 undergraduate, postgraduate and research students to study a range of Heriot-Watt University degree programmes in engineering, technology, business, finance, engineering and design.

Professor Craik was previously the Deputy Principal for Learning and Teaching at Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh, where he had specific responsibility for leading and implementing the learning and teaching strategy for the University and for academic quality assurance as well as a wider role in University management.

The Malaysia campus with its professionally relevant degrees tailored to the needs of industry, commerce and wider society, will not only serve students from across Malaysia, but will offer opportunities to students from countries in the surrounding region. Professor Craik said, "I am delighted to be taking up the role of Provost and CEO at such an exciting time during Malaysia's drive for economic growth and development. We are committed to offering high quality British education to students from Malaysia and across Asia."

Professor Craik continued, "I am looking forward to establishing our £35m purpose-built campus, proving quality degrees to educate the next generation of leaders in a wide range of fields and building education and research links around the region."

Before taking up key leadership responsibilities, Professor Craik was a Professor in the School of the Built Environment where his main interests were in building acoustics and vibration. He was head of the acoustics laboratory with a particular interest in developing theoretical models for predicting sound transmission in complex structures such as buildings, ships and aircraft.