 Newsletter March 2026 |
| Psychology Research: The Next Generation Across our campuses in Dubai, Edinburgh and Malaysia, undergraduate and postgraduate students have been showcasing their research skills, sharing the results of consultancy projects or dissertations in conferences hosted on our campuses and externally. The undergraduate dissertations represent the culmination of over a year of effort, from the development of their proposal before entering their final year, to their recent submissions. Well done to all of those who presented, with a snapshot of some of those activities below. At our Malaysia campus, our annual Psychology Conference included presentations from students across year groups. Clarrie Sim, 2nd year BSc Psychology student and Student Co-chair of the conference, provides the following report: “The Psychology Student Society and Department of Psychology hosted the annual Heriot-Watt University Malaysia Psychology Conference on 15 April 2026. This student-led event celebrated and showcased the diverse research and academic achievements of psychology students across all year groups. The conference featured parallel oral and poster presentation sessions, followed by a networking session that gave students the opportunity to discuss their research findings and project proposals with peers, academic staff, alumni, and industry partners. These conversations helped build an inclusive and generative community where innovative thinking and achievements were recognised. We were also honoured to welcome distinguished guest YAM Tengku Puteri Raja Tengku Puteri Iman Afzan Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah from the Green Ribbon Group. “The success of the conference was the result of a strong staff-student partnership, creating an environment where students to work closely and actively engage with staff through event planning and management. Welcoming their ideas and allowing them to feel seen, heard and valued. “As Student co-chair, it was a rewarding experience to work alongside Dr Poh Wei Lin and to lead such an enthusiastic student committee. The commitment and teamwork behind the scenes were what made the event both successful and impactful.”    For our Edinburgh students, showcasing their research included presenting that at the BPS Scotland Undergraduate Conference. The 2026 event was hosted by the University of Strathclyde and six of our final year undergraduate students gave fantastic talks on their research projects:
Representatives from our Edinburgh team who attended were very proud of our students, as were others in the team who were able to get a sneak peek at the results during a practice session a few days before. You can read more about the BPS Scotland Undergraduate Conference here https://www.bps.org.uk/news/bps-undergraduate-conference.      Students on the MSc Applied Psychology and MSc Social and Behavioural Research Methods programmes in Edinburgh presented their research in the annual Applying Psychology in the Real World Online Student Conference as part of their assessment on a course led by Dr Mhairi Bowe. They presented their consultancy work for attending partner organisations Volunteer Scotland and Shakti Women’s Aid who supplied real world problem-based organisational issues for them to address. Their consultancies explored topics relating to volunteering and emotional resilience, societal challenges (poverty, community divisions, climate and cost of living), polarisation, and civic engagement and how to support the health and wellbeing of children and families who have experienced domestic abuse. And finally from Edinburgh, congratulations to PhD student Angela Sener on her talk at the University’s Health and Care Innovation Conference for Early Career Researchers winning the People’s Choice Award. Well done. Next month, we’ll have a report from the recent undergraduate Psychology Student Research Conference in Dubai, which included 9 talks and 13 posters from our 3rd and 4th year students…watch this space! Speaking of Dubai, last month we reported on the Social Capital Conference hosted from our Dubai campus. Apologies we failed to mention one of the talks was presented by Narima Elewa, one of our MSc Business Psychology students.  Well done to students across campuses for sharing their research. A positive signal that the next generation of Psychology is in safe hands! In the news Cosmopolitan: So, You’ve Just Been F-Worded (Furloughed), Here’s What To Do Next Dubai campus hosts Social Capital 2026 Conference Art and arcade: Malaysia campus celebrates International Day of Happiness Dubai campus hosts first-ever virtual Open Day Dubai campus hosts Science to Practice seminar exploring AI through a human lens Heriot-Watt University Malaysia among top picks in Graduate Employability Rankings Celebrating Edinburgh Science Festival 2026 Dubai campus hosts workshop on understanding addictions How the Health and Care Tech GRI is bridging research and reality British Psychological Society: BPS Undergraduate Conference International Coaching Week events Nature publishes global study on trust in science involving Heriot-Watt academic Research & engagement Research updates and funding Two Psychology students in Edinburgh have been awarded School of Social Sciences Athena Swan Widening Participating Summer Undergraduate Bursaries. These bursaries will provide them funding to undertake a research project this summer. Skarlett Compan, one of our 3rd year students, will work with Dr Kelly Wolfe to examine older adults’ experiences of having ADHD with the aim of identifying causes, challenges and areas for improvement in health care. Lucy McGhee, a 2nd year student, will work with Dr Mark Atkinson and Dr Mhairi Bowe on a project that will explore barriers and facilitators of help and support-seeking in carers. The project aims to promote understanding to tackle the health and wellbeing challenges faced by those with caring responsibilities and the reported poor uptake of benefits designed to support them. The project will also be supported with competitively won seed corn funding from the new SOCIAL Impact Lab in Psychology. Freya Richards, another of our 3rd year students, has also been awarded a Carnegie Education Fund Vacation Scholarship. Freya will be researching how mental health, shift length, and stress affect rapid decision-making by Police Scotland staff, supervised by Kelly. Good luck to our students as they embark on their projects. We’ll include updates on the outcomes of those in future newsletters. Research in action In this section, we share updates from our researchers including their work in progress, studies looking for volunteers, summaries of new papers and more. Details about our research themes and ongoing work can also be found on the Psychology research website. Researchers from our team recently published an article, Conceptualizing Critical Thinking Skills: An Empirical Study of Malaysian Undergraduate Students and Academic Staff, in Higher Education for the Future. In the study, Dr Ron Salden and postgraduate researcher Seng San Soo Toh from our Malaysia campus and Dr Terry Lansdown and Professor Deborah Hall from our Edinburgh campus, working with Dr Chia Ping Lee from the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, explored how critical thinking is understood and taught in Malaysia, emphasising that higher education should focus on how to think, not just what to think. Working with students and educators, the team developed clearer, more accessible descriptions of key critical thinking skills and found strong agreement among students on their importance across disciplines. However, the research also highlighted a gap in students’ confidence, particularly in self-regulation skills, suggesting opportunities for universities to better embed these capabilities into curricula. The findings offer valuable insights for enhancing teaching practices and strengthening student engagement across higher education. Conferences and outreach Our Psychology Research Seminars and events run in a variety of modes: in-person, online and hybrid. Events in the coming weeks are listed below, with fuller details available on our events page. Check the details to see if you can join the event on your campus or online. Last month, Dr Mel McKendrick from our Edinburgh team opened the University’s MIND Digital Mental Health Hackathon at The Melting Pot, giving a brief overview of the research areas that MIND covers. The hackathon brought together researchers, industry professionals and individuals with lived experience to accelerate the development of impactful, user-centred digital mental health solutions. Activities focussed on translating research into real-world applications. Expert-led sessions highlighted key challenges in the field, setting the stage for a collaborative hackathon where multidisciplinary teams worked to rapidly generate innovative, practical ideas. Rather than focusing on fully developed technologies, the hackathon emphasised meaningful concepts with clear potential for real-world impact. The result was a series of thoughtful, user-informed solutions addressing pressing challenges in digital mental health. Learning & teaching Last month, our final year undergraduate students in Malaysia visited a local hospital to provide a real-world context for their learning. One of the students, Iris Sumayyah Muhammad Syukri, reports: “The Cognitive Rehabilitation class had the privilege of visiting Sultan Idris Shah Hospital in Serdang to observe cognitive rehabilitation in action. We were first welcomed into the Cognitive Rehabilitation Department by the experienced Dr. Sabrina Intan, who gave us an insightful overview of cognition. Her dynamic approach, using unique metaphors, personal anecdotes, and unexpected questions, kept us constantly engaged—at times, it even felt like a cognition pop quiz! “This was followed by a session with Mr. Amirullah, who walked us through how neuropsychological assessments and rehabilitation strategies are applied in practice to support patients’ functional goals. Both sessions served not only as a valuable refresher, but also bridged the gap between theory and practice by demonstrating how classroom concepts translate into clinical practice within our local healthcare system. “The visit concluded with a tour of the department, where we explored facilities such as a driving simulator, an Activities of Daily Living (ADL) area, and a sleep room. We also had the chance to observe a MoCA test being administered in real-time. “Overall, this visit has provided a valuable glimpse into the realities of cognitive rehabilitation, and reinforced the relevance of our course knowledge in real-world contexts.” With thanks to the team at Sultan Idris Shah Hospital for supporting our visit.  The Psychology Society in Dubai published the final issue of Psyched! for the current academic year. Psyched! is a monthly magazine led and run by students. A dedicated team pull together articles contributed by students on topics related to Psychology. The March issue, “The Human Side of Psychology” can be read at https://online.fliphtml5.com/psyched25-26/uruq/#p=1, and explores “how clinical psychology connects to moments many of us quietly recognise. From joking about painful experiences and feeling anxious during rest to struggling with sleep or emotional numbness, our writers unpack topics that often go unnoticed in everyday life, including insomnia and burnout versus depression. Alongside this, our Book Recommendations and Psych Meets Art sections highlight how literature and creativity offer powerful ways to understand and express psychological experiences”. The Magazine Leads, Kulsoom Usman (ku4000@hw.ac.uk) and Archana Praveen (ap5001@hw.ac.uk), also thanked everyone for “reading, engaging with, and supporting the magazine… We hope our work has resonated with you in some way, and we look forward to bringing you more in the future”. Our MSc Sport Psychology students in Edinburgh delivered their final sport psychology workshop assessment which they designed to address a real world sport performance challenge and celebrated their final in-person session together. This year, our students have represented Psychology widely via their contributions to sport psychology education and provision with multiple external partners from Oriam sport scholarship student athletes, Scotland Squash, Fettes College (talented athlete scheme), Hearts FC Academy, The Athlete Academy, Scotland/GB National Youth Climbers, HWU Women’s Football, HWU Men’s and Women’s Rugby and as volunteers at the Paralympics ‘Kit it Out’ event in Oriam earlier this year. The Sport Psychology team are rightly proud of the students. And quite right too – what excellent ambassadors for Heriot-Watt!  Student voice In “Student voice”, we hear from our students. Every contribution is different, so if you have something you’d like to share in a future newsletter, get in touch. This month we hear from Sara Mehboobie who graduated from our MSc Business Psychology with Coaching programme at our Edinburgh campus last year. Contributor: Sara Mehboobi (MSc Business Psychology with Coaching, Edinburgh) Crossing continents as a master’s student from a totally different educational background was challenging for Sara, but during her time at Heriot-Watt, she has achieved remarkable success. From creating her own start-up in photography to opening a restaurant, Sara’s University journey was more than she could have imagined. Discover more about Sara’s story below. What programme did you study and why did you choose it? I pursued an MSc in Business Psychology with Coaching because my extensive background in clinical psychology sparked a curiosity about the dynamics of the business world. Heriot-Watt University provided the perfect platform for me to explore this fascinating intersection. With my empathetic nature and genuine passion for business, I was driven to choose this program as a way to blend my skills and interests, with the aim of enhancing organizational effectiveness and employee wellbeing. What were the key differences you found between studying in India and Scotland? The most striking difference I’ve observed is the reliance on rote learning in India. During my 16 years of education there, I was primarily trained to memorize theories without ever translating that knowledge into real-world applications. In stark contrast, from the very first day at Heriot-Watt, I was challenged to not only understand the concepts but also to apply what I learned in practical situations. This transformative approach has greatly enriched my educational journey. Can you tell us more about some of the key events you took part in? Throughout my journey in India, I have engaged in various events, so when I discovered that a Model United Nations (MUN) would take place at Heriot-Watt, I eagerly reached out to the President of the Debate Society to offer my photography services. At the MUN, I had the privilege of serving as both a photographer and a core team member. At TEDxHWU, we brought together seven inspiring speakers to tackle pressing topics like sustainability and the future of Gen Z in 2025. As a core team member, I was pivotal in coordinating tasks for volunteers and leveraging my creative skills as a photographer and production lead. The most rewarding aspect of this experience was the incredible teamwork -the way diverse cultures, roles, and perspectives harmonized to transform our vision into a reality. I didn’t just contribute to organizing these impactful events; I forged friendships that will last a lifetime. How have you found balancing your studies with creating a start-up in photography? I discovered YORS (Your Only Rare Shot) during a quiet moment at my kitchen table, scrolling through the photos I had taken. In that instant, it became clear to me: why not embark on a journey that’s entirely my own? In my first semester, I proactively reached out to a variety of models and bands to collaborate with them, and since then, I have kept myself on a relentless path of growth and creativity. Balancing my studies with my passion was no easy feat – yet who wants the easy route? I committed to my master’s program with unwavering dedication, never missing a class, not even on my birthday. Amidst the rigor, I carved out time for my photography. I would attend day classes, devote evenings to shoots, then return home to prepare dinner for myself before immersing myself in my studies for the next day. It was a demanding schedule, but I recognized the importance of this effort for my future self. What’s your most memorable moment from your time as a Heriot-Watt student? My time at Heriot-Watt was truly unforgettable, especially during the TEDx event. I wholeheartedly committed myself to its success, and the friendships I forged along the way made the experience even more rewarding. I also found immense value in my Coaching Psychology classes; Dr. Joann Griffith’s engaging approach left a lasting impression on all of us. Lastly, the chaplaincy trips were the highlight of my journey at Heriot-Watt. If I had the opportunity, I would jump at the chance to travel with them again. What are you planning to do after you graduate? I have successfully launched a restaurant in my hometown, and I’m excited to share that my photography start-up has achieved remarkable results, reaching an impressive 74% engagement across social media platforms in just six months. In addition, I serve as the Chief Strategy Officer at a dynamic start-up, Potli, where my strategic initiatives have driven substantial growth, projecting a potential increase of 62% within only four months. Looking ahead, I plan to enhance my skills by exploring photo coaching therapy in Mauritius, alongside taking on photoshoots and expanding my restaurant venture. Team news Dr Lucy Bolton was pleased to be involved in the University’s Induction Belong session held in Edinburgh, welcoming new starters and focused on our staff and student community – “Putting staff and students at the heart of everything we do”. Lucy commented on the rich discussions about the engaging and diverse global community across different areas of the university, and the wide range of support initiatives in place to help people thrive. She was on the panel alongside colleagues from across the University, and was particularly pleased to be able to highlight the coaching support we provide for both staff and students, supporting wellbeing development, and progression at every stage. Lucy said, “A strong sense of belonging, connection and care makes such a difference, and it was inspiring to be part of conversations that reflect this so clearly at HWU”. Speaking of coaching, to mark International Coaching Week 2026, the University is hosting a Coaching Month featuring a series of engaging events that highlight the value and impact of coaching in education, leadership and wellbeing. The programme includes open sessions for the wider community and staff-only events, and showcases an EMCC-led session, a guest talk by Linda McLoughlin, mentor to our coaching students, and a dedicated session on neurodiversity and coaching. There is also a staff session on Introduction to Coaching. Coaching offers a powerful space for reflection, growth and inclusive practice, and we warmly invite colleagues and students to explore the programme and join us for these sessions. Check out the details and event links here International Coaching Week 2026 – Coaching Lab.    We were delighted to see 33 members of our Global Psychology team nominated for the University’s Celebrating Our People Awards. Congratulations to (with * denoting multiple nominations): Adele Dickson, Anna Sedda*, Ayca Demiran, Cakil Agnew*, Chia Keat Yap*, Curt More, Deborah Hall, Denise Andrzejewski*, Emily Messer*, Gary Pheiffer*, Glenn Hitchman*, Gregory Fantham*, Guek Nee Ke*, Hajar Yekani Yekani*, Ioannis Argyropoulos, Joann Griffith, Kenneth Kin Lok Leow*, Lauren Potter, Louise Delicato, Lucy Bolton*, Mandy Wong*, Mel McKendrick, Melissa Pavetich*, Minu Mathews*, Mioara Cristea, Pete Coffee*, Pete McKenna, Pik Ki Ho*, Rachael Hulme, Ron Salden*, Terry Lansdown, Wei Lin Poh* and Zoë Fortune*. And good luck for the announcement of the individual and team winners in the coming weeks! |
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