Prof. Harry Braden, Head of School
The School of Mathematics is situated in the James Clerk Maxwell Building within the King's Buildings campus, 4 km south of Edinburgh city centre. There are over 50 academic and related staff and around 30 research students. The school also runs a number of MSc courses. Undergraduate courses are given to around 2000 students in any one year. The administration of undergraduate courses is co-ordinated by the Mathematical Teaching Organisation (MTO), comprising a Director and two Administrative Secretaries.
The School was judged "Excellent" in the last Teaching Quality Assessment and was rated 5* (Pure), 5 (Applied) and 4 (Statistics and Operational Research) in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. It is committed to maintaining and improving the quality of its teaching provision, including the related administrative procedures. Within the school there are a wide range of research areas and many seminars and colloquia are run throughout the academic year.
The University of Edinburgh, which was founded in 1583, has a student population of about 20,000 and employs over 3000 academic and related staff, together with around 3500 non-teaching staff in the clerical, technical and manual categories. The main locations of the University are in the central area (to the south of the city centre) and at the King's Buildings some 4 km from the city centre (at the foot of Blackford Hill). There is also a substantial grouping at Easter Bush near Roslin some 11 km to the south, in the countryside beyond the city boundary.
The University of Edinburgh is one of the largest unitary universities in the UK, covering as wide a range of academic disciplines as any British university. Following the merger with Moray House Institute of Education, it is the largest university in Scotland. The University's strategy is research-led, and this attracts a substantial volume of external funding.
