The Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Donald Wilson recently visited Heriot-Watt University to meet with the Principal and Deputy Principal to discuss the University's application to set up a Confucius Institute for Business and Communication for Scotland.
The Lord Provost was given a tour of the brand new state of the art interpreting labs in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, which is based within the School of Management and Languages. In 2012 the University invested over £700,000 to refurbish and develop language learning and interpreting facilities for its students, modelling them on those used in the European Parliament. Four new labs and one self-study lab provide students with greater hands-on interaction with translation and interpreting equipment.
As part of the tour the Lord Provost was able to listen to simultaneous interpreting in the new labs (from Chinese into English) by Chinese students on the MSc Chinese-English Interpreting and Translating programme. The students also had an opportunity to ask the Lord Provost about Sino-Scottish relations and in particular Edinburgh's links with China in the areas of business and communication.
During the visit the Principal and the Lord Provost also discussed Heriot-Watt's bid to become Scotland's National Performance Centre for Sport.
The Lord Provost has granted his endorsement for both initiatives and has agreed to become a member of the Advisory Board for the Confucius Institute for Business and Communication for Scotland.
Heriot-Watt University Principal, Professor Steve Chapman, said, "The Lord Provost's visit was a great success. Our new language and interpreting labs are an impressive facility and which colleagues in the School of Management and Languages are justly proud of.
"I was also delighted that, during his visit, the Lord Provost endorsed our bid to become Scotland's National Performance Centre for Sport."