I like Arts and Humanities because people are a part of every research question and scientific paradigms are framed by individuals; because creativity and innovation go together; because history can foretell the future as well as accounting for the past, and to be ignorant of it is to repeat it; because a strong arts sector builds a strong economy as well as being sustained by it; because museums are good for you.
Murray Pittock is co-Chair of SAHA and Bradley Professor at the University of Glasgow, where he has served in senior leadership roles since 2008. He is currently Pro Vice-Principal, with responsibilities ranging from directing early career development for over 500 academic staff in Glasgow, Dumfries, China and Singapore, to external partnerships with a particular focus on the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District . He leads the Kelvin Hall development for the University as well as chairing its Advanced Research Centre XR Strategy Board. Murray is a Trustee (Research and Education) and Scottish History advisor to the National Trust for Scotland and an advisor to many other organizations. His recent funded research includes the £1M Allan Ramsay and the Enlightenment Project, a Scottish Government report on the impact of Burns on the Scottish Economy, and an urban history consultancy with Barclays Bank. He has held visiting appointments at Yale, New York University, Notre Dame, Trinity College, Dublin, Charles University, Prague, South Carolina and other institutions. Murray has made around 2000 media appearances in 55 countries on culture, politics, history and society. His Global History of Scotland is due out in 2022 from Yale. In 2020, he became the first person elected to Academia Europaea for research on Scottish studies.
