University of Edinburgh principal Peter Mathieson on dispelling the "depressing, negative and polarising rhetoric" about arts degrees.

As I walked across campus several times during the last week, I was struck by the carnival atmosphere.

Hundreds of people were lining up outside the historic McEwan Hall, while excited conversations filled the air from crowds under marquees.

You would be forgiven for thinking I’m describing a scene from the Edinburgh Fringe, but this marked our week-long celebration welcoming new students to the University, which we call “Welcome Week”.  

Around 18,000 students were invited to take part in their choice of 1,600 events throughout the week. That’s 18,000 individuals, each commencing what may be the most formative years of their lives. And history has taught us that many will go on to have a huge impact on the world.

Roughly 60% of those students will be matriculated within Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS).

This is by far our most populous College at the University of Edinburgh (the others being Science & Engineering, and Medicine & Veterinary Medicine).

Last year, more than 57% of all those studying – 28,255 of 49,485 students – were pursuing AHSS degrees. To provide an idea of scale: that means this College’s student population is higher than that of Aberdeen and St Andrews Universities combined.

(Image: PA) These students are beginning at Edinburgh following a summer of change: a new First Minister, new UK government, and a new candidate for the US Presidential elections have been installed since the previous semester concluded.

This is set against a backdrop of social unrest across England, intensifying global crises, threats to arts funding, and a seismic period of innovation – with developments in artificial intelligence (AI), data and supercomputing set to alter every aspect of our daily lives.

Read more:

At this time of shifting sands, I wish to dispel a depressing, negative and polarising rhetoric that has echoed throughout factions of our society and media over the past decade, one that is undermining the value of academic endeavour within the arts, humanities and social sciences.

First, to students undertaking an arts degree: as with your predecessors – many of whom contributed to some of the world’s most important intellectual movements – your choice remains a sound one.

'Your choice is a sound one''Your choice is a sound one' (Image: Neil Hanna)

Data has shown that three years after graduating there is little difference in employment rates between disciplines. Moreover, while three per cent of science graduates become managers, directors or senior officials, the figure for non-science degrees is twice as high.

However, I have no desire to pit STEM and the arts against one another; nor should we reduce the value of degrees to graduate earnings alone, despite the inclination to do so in response to cost-of-living pressures.

There are so many other benefits of a university degree that go beyond earnings potential. To ignore these misses the point of why universities will continue to be a leading light in generating knowledge and innovation for centuries to come. It’s their very symbiosis that will enable our success.

Take, for instance, our new Edinburgh Futures Institute. The former Royal Infirmary has been given a new life as a home for interdisciplinary research, teaching and collaboration.

Within the former wards where medics, nurses and others worked together to treat the ill, now the state-of-the-art space brings together academics and students with industry, government and communities to tackle increasingly complex issues.

I like to point out that the building was designed in the pre-antibiotic era to limit contagion whereas we are now using it to promote contagion, this time intellectual cross-infection rather than the microbiological kind!

Esteemed colleagues such as Professor Shannon Vallor, who joined EFI from Silicon Valley in 2020, underline the need for humanities-driven expertise in STEM.

In her work as a philosopher of technology, she warns that AI and machine learning can only reflect back to us what they have already been taught, and thereby risk blocking human potential for fresh thinking.

Such profound ethical considerations are crucial to guide the responsible and fair development of this rapidly growing technology.

This extends well beyond academia, as this year Professor Vallor gave invited testimony to the US Senate on AI and democracy. Her PhD students contributed to the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator – an initiative that harnessed expertise to integrate ethical thinking into policymaking.

This interdisciplinary ethos is baked into our curriculum to prepare students at the earliest stages of their careers.

Our new Challenge Courses take first and second years from all disciplines to learn about and navigate some of society’s most significant challenges, such as those in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

READ MORE:

Elsewhere, our Masters students are undertaking placement-based dissertations, meaning they gain first-hand experience in NGOs, charities or other organisations while completing their studies.

There are hundreds of examples I could draw upon to demonstrate how AHSS researchers and students are collaborating beyond any imagined boundaries between them and STEM to address critical issues facing our planet.

The University hosts more than 35 distinct research centres, institutes, networks and groups that are making an impact through climate and environmental research.

Last year we launched the Centre for Purpose-Driven Innovation in Banking in partnership with the NatWest Group.

Through this, more than 100 academics are working together on projects such as exploring how advanced AI might outwit fraudsters and examining how quantum computing is used in financial services.

While there is no doubt that arts, humanities and social sciences have a critical role to play in addressing these agendas, we must acknowledge the importance of these disciplines in and of themselves.

Not only do the creative industries attract huge investment – Edinburgh’s Festivals generate an estimated economic impact of £407 million – the arts are something to be protected and enabled to flourish.

READ MORE:

We offer the widest range of languages of any UK institution. We have the oldest department for English and Scottish Literature in the UK.

We have just marked 60 years of Computer Science and AI at the University, and our world-renowned Medical School is one of the oldest in the world. There are 19 Nobel Prize Laureates linked to Edinburgh.

As an institution, we stand on the shoulders of thinkers and innovators across all disciplines.

During the Enlightenment, Edinburgh was described as a “hotbed of genius” and world-renowned writers such as Voltaire visited our great city to work with the leading academics of the day.

This explosion of new ways of thinking and doing things was only possible because of diverse disciplines evolving simultaneously.

This spirit is still very much apparent today, and because of this I am optimistic that history will view us favourably as we enter the next transformational age.

Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Edinburgh.