The Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh have announced a joint collaborative project that will further strengthen the international profile of Scottish-Irish Studies.
Professor Tom Devine, the pre-eminent authority on the history of modern Scotland, has been appointed to the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Devine is currently Research Professor and Director of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. In an innovative departure from tradition, Professor Devine will maintain his Aberdeen connection as Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies, and Associate Director of the Institution’s AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies. The Principals of both Edinburgh and Aberdeen view the new joint arrangement as paving the way to enhanced collaboration between their respective institutions, particularly in Professor Devine’s specialist field of Scottish-Irish Studies.
Welcoming Professor Devine’s appointment, Professor Timothy O’Shea, Principal of Edinburgh University, stated that ‘the University of Edinburgh is pleased that Professor Devine will be joining us and we are pleased also that he will continue to hold a position at Aberdeen, thereby maintaining the link with the Research Centre which he has done so much to build up into a world-class centre of excellence’.
Professor C Duncan Rice, Principal of the University of Aberdeen, also welcomed the move.
“Professor Devine’s achievements since joining the University in 1998 have been truly remarkable. Under his leadership, the Research Centre has become an internationally important centre of research and teaching. Over that period, it has raised no less than £3.4m for advanced research, a truly extraordinary sum for a humanities academic development.
“This unique and pioneering partnership between the two universities will further raise the international profile of Irish and Scottish Studies, and will pave the way for future collaboration in these fields with the University of Edinburgh.”
Professor Devine’s distinction was recognised in the New Year’s Honours List of 2005, when he was awarded an OBE ‘For services to Scottish history’. He is also a winner of perhaps Scotland’s premier academic accolade, the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, presented to him by the Queen in 2001. Professor Devine also holds honorary degrees from the Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Abertay. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Professor Devine will take up his appointment in Edinburgh in January 2006.