North Elevation, courtesy of Bennets Associates

An anonymous donor has pledged £10m to help transform the city’s former Royal Infirmary into a state-of-the-art home for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

The gift is the biggest ever capital donation to the University of Edinburgh.

Upon moving into the former Royal Infirmary in 2021, the Institute will be one of the largest centres for interdisciplinary learning and research in Europe.

“We are deeply grateful for this visionary gift to the University, which will help us to create a truly exceptional teaching and research environment within the Edinburgh Futures Institute. The Institute will challenge us to think differently about how we can effect change, both locally and globally.

“By marrying our world-class expertise in the humanities, arts and social sciences with our sector-defining research in new data technologies, it will produce practical solutions and new approaches for the common good. This generous gift will help realise this vision.””

— Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea, Principal of the University of Edinburgh

Fresh approach

At the Institute researchers will, for example, consider how areas such as theology can help tackle climate change or what business management can do to alleviate the refugee crisis.

They will also grapple with ways in which lawyers can foster creativity and reflect on how design informatics can tackle inequality.

The Institute will play an important part in ambitious plans to make Edinburgh and its surrounding area the data capital of Europe.

The world is experiencing major changes: climate volatility, political discontent, advances in artificial intelligence, economic upheavals. This presents big challenges. We need different ways of thinking about these issues and of devising new solutions. Edinburgh Futures Institute will make that difference.

“It will blend theoretical and practical knowledge. It will work with organisations dealing directly with these challenges and curate meaningful interactions between seemingly disparate disciplines. We want our students to embody this approach and our partners to share the vision and help us to develop it.”

Vice-Principal Professor Dorothy Miell
Head of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Inspiring new home

The £10m gift will help give the Institute a permanent home.
It will sensitively renovate a wing of the Category A-listed former Royal Infirmary in central Edinburgh.
The restored building, which will be open to the wider public, is due to be complete in 2021. It has lain empty since 2003.
The donation will create a flexible space that enables collaboration among students, staff and partner organisations.

Open to all

In recognition of the historic building’s importance to the wider community, the multimillion pound development will include a public piazza, garden spaces and a large subterranean multi-functional space for events and lectures.

The University has appointed Faithful+Gould as project managers, Bennetts Associates as architects, and Consarc as conservation architects. Construction work has begun on site.

Transforming the Category A-listed Royal Infirmary into the University’s Edinburgh Futures Institute is an incredibly important project for the institution and for the city. The building is one of the top-ten listed buildings in Edinburgh. It has enormous potential for rejuvenation, providing a completely new and more open identity, especially with a public square on Lauriston Place.

Rab Bennetts
Founding Director and Architect, Bennetts Associates