About Us

Robots have the potential to revolutionise the world's economy and society over the next twenty years, working for us, beside us and interacting with us. The robotics and autonomous systems area has been highlighted by the UK Government in 2013 as one the 8 Great Technologies that underpin the UK's Industrial Strategy for jobs and growth. The UK urgently needs graduates with the technical skills and industry awareness to create an innovation pipeline from academic research to global markets, in application areas including manufacturing, assistive and medical robots, offshore energy, environmental monitoring, search and rescue, defence, and support for the ageing population, amounting to a market space worth billions globally.

The Edinburgh Centre for Robotics brings together students and researchers from Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, drawing on our long standing record of world-leading research and postgraduate education in the area of robotics and autonomous systems area. The ECR provides a world-class environment for cutting edge robotics research, together with an innovative training programmes, individually tailored to a wide range of robotics topics grounded in current theory, methods and applications, with flexibility for strategic individualised study. A key focus of the ECR is to produce innovation-ready graduates who can not only make fundamental advances in the theory and development of robotics technology, but also have the skills to take these advances through to achieving impact in the form of new products and new companies.

University websites

Heriot Watt School of Engineering and Physical Sciences

Heriot Watt School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences

University of Edinburgh School of Informatics

University of Edinburgh School of Engineering