University of the Highlands and Islands - UHI

SAMS is a founding partner of the University of the Highlands and Islands, a federal collegiate academic institution. UHI consists of 13 independent established colleges and research institutions with over 50 outreach learning centres – and with an administrative centre known as Executive Office based in Inverness. The Academic Partners and Associate Institutions are located throughout the region. They all have their distinct and diverse histories and missions, and deliver a wide range of both further and higher education services. For students this means that they can share in the educational advantages of a larger institution while benefiting from the personal attention a smaller institute can offer.

Some partners are large colleges offering a plethora of further and higher education courses (Inverness College, Perth College, Moray College), while others serve smaller communities (Shetland College, Orkney College, Lews Castle College, North Highland College). Some institutes are very specialised (Highland Theological College, Scottish Association for Marine Science, North Atlantic Fisheries College, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig), while Argyll College and West Highland College are of a dispersed nature and are both made up of a network of learning centres.

UHI aspires to play a pivotal role in the educational, economic, social and cultural development of the region. With an area of over 400,000 km2 and over 100 inhabited islands, the UHI catchment region – including Perthshire – covers more than half the landmass of Scotland. Due to a very small population of fewer than 500,000 – of which 100,000 live on the islands – the provision of higher education to develop the work force in such a dispersed area is a major challenge. Prior to the establishment of the University of the Highlands and Islands the people of the region typically had to move away or study through distance learning providers to obtain higher education qualifications.

The idea of establishing a university for the Highlands and Islands region was considered for over 600 years with Perth, Birsay, Cromarty and Inverness suggested as sites for such an institution.

From the outset it was quite clear that a traditional campus university would not greatly improve the provision of higher education throughout the Highlands and Islands while a collegiate university with smaller partners and learning centres linked by computer technology would reach a larger audience and serve the region better. 

The first concrete steps to create the University of the Highlands and Islands were taken in 1990, when, based on a report by Highland Regional Council, the former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Strathclyde University, Sir Graham Hills, was commissioned to report on the best way forward. In June 1992 he published his report confirming the scope for a federal collegiate university based on existing further education colleges in the region. With this report the University of the Highlands and Islands Project (UHIp) was born.

In November 1993 Highlands and Islands Enterprise created a UHI Project office, and UHI Limited was incorporated the following month. The appointment of full-time project staff and the development of research projects and new degree programmes made UHIp a reality.

In 1996 the Millennium Commission awarded UHIp a grant of £33.35 million, which allowed the project to progress to the next stage: In 1997 the Executive Office of UHI was created in Inverness and the first UHI Chief Executive was appointed (Brian Duffield). The following year saw four research schools being established at UHI, and the student council formed. In 1998 UHI formed an academic partnership agreement with the Open University (OU), which allowed the validation of UHI degree programmes through the OU Validation Services (OUVS) until such time that UHI was to be granted independent degree-awarding powers. In the following year the OU approved UHI to supervise students and provide research degree programmes leading to MPhil and PhD awards. In later years the University of Aberdeen took over the responsibility to monitor UHI's postgraduate research qualifications from the Open University.

In April 2001 UHIp was recognised as a Higher Education Institution and changed its name to UHI Millennium Institute. In 2008, under the leadership of Professor Robert Cormack, UHI finally achieved taught degree awarding powers and could award its own undergraduate and taught Masters qualifications. Under the leadership of James Fraser, UHI achieved university status in 2011.