An international group of research students are being officially welcomed to the University of Aberdeen today (Friday, October 20) as part of an event to mark the new Graduate School in the College of Arts and Social Sciences.
More than 120 research students have joined the Graduate School in October this year and they will be welcomed to the University today with a series of talks and presentations by senior academics at the forefront of their fields.
The event, which is being held in the Patio Hotel, will involve top academics from key areas in business, divinity, education history & philosophy, language & literature, law and social sciences. The speakers, most of who joined the University of Aberdeen as part of its pioneering Sixth Century Recruitment Campaign, in which over 50 new Chair appointments have been made, will give the students an overview of their research and talk about strategies for producing excellent internationally-recognised research work.
Professor Angela Black, Director of the Graduate School for the College of Arts and Social Sciences, said she was delighted to be welcoming such a talented and diverse group of students to the University of Aberdeen. She said: “We are very much looking forward to welcoming the new research students to Aberdeen. To mark their arrival, we have planned a busy and varied programme of talks as one of the key aims of today’s event is to promote cross-disciplinary work by demonstrating the strong links between academics in the College.”
The students attending today’s event have come to Aberdeen from various parts of the world including Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and the Far East.
In April 2005, the University announced a £2.25million investment programme to support PhD studentships as part of its continued investment in excellence. For six centuries, the University has pursued the highest levels of teaching and research for PhD students with the simple guiding principle that tomorrow’s great thinkers should learn from today’s.
The University’s highly successful £9million Sixth Century Recruitment Campaign is continuing to attract outstanding scholars who have achieved international distinction in their fields to the University to complement the existing excellence within the Institution and to continue to bring world-class recognition to the University across many disciplines. The University is at the forefront of arts and social sciences, in science, computing, engineering, technology medicine, and medical sciences.
There has been an unprecedented £9million investment in Aberdeen’s intellectual leadership with 27 Chair level appointments being made in the past year. Added to this, the University’s Sixth Century Fund-raising Campaign, which aims to raise £150million by 2010, shows that it is one of the most progressive fund-raising institutions in Britain.
“Our investment will ensure that these PhD students will learn and be supported by leading academics and, in doing so, we are also supporting and nurturing the next generation of great researchers,” added Professor Black.
“The investment demonstrates the University’s commitment in continuing to develop a high-quality research environment of international standing. These studentships offer the opportunity to further enhance these areas and to support the centres of excellence that we have been developing.”
For further information about the College of Arts and Social Sciences and its Graduate School, log on to: www.abdn.ac.uk/cass