The diverse academic disciplines of the staff of the Department enable both research and training to be pursued in a multi-skill environment which is essential to the modern oil and gas industry. The Department has pursued, and will continue to pursue relevant research and to develop new courses to meet the needs of the industry with which it is so closely associated. In February 1995 Heriot-Watt University received one of the inaugural Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education in recognition of the outstanding achievements and excellence of the Department of Petroleum Engineering. 1996 saw the department being awarded the top rating of Five Stars in the Research Assessment Exercise. With the opening of the Enterprise Oil Building in mid-1993, total space available exceeds 3,600 square metres.
Computers play an important role both in research and teaching.
Workstations, with ever increasing performance, are ideal for geostatistical modelling, reservoir simulation and other complex problems, while personal computers are widely available for the running of standard technical, mathematical and presentational software. The Department has extensive computer facilities. The Department has modern classroom facilities, and a specialist library which maintains a wide range of Petroleum Engineering related texts and periodicals. Information services, including CD ROM and on-line searches, are available. The Department was established in 1975, the year in which first oil was produced from the North Sea, to satisfy the Industry's growing requirement for professional Petroleum Engineers.