University of St Andrews department scoops awards

Steve Watt, Chief Information Officer at the University, was voted ICT Leader of the Year at the 2013 Holyrood Connect ICT Awards. Appointed in 2010, he has begun a transformation project aimed at revitalising the St Andrews IT Services department and improving services for users.

Mr Watt fought off strong competition from shortlisted candidates from Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh Napier University and the Crown Office.
At the same ceremony in Glasgow, the St Andrews department also won the Green Award – for “effective use of ICT to deliver environmental benefits.”
Again the team faced strong competition - in the form of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Scottish Government - to take the accolade.

The team also narrowly missed out on the night, in the competitive category of Project Delivery Award which went to South Lanarkshire Council.
Steve Watt said: “I was absolutely thrilled to receive this award. Since taking up my post as CIO at the University three years ago, we’ve been on an incredible journey and this award further acknowledges that our strategy is focussed in the right direction. IT provision in universities and the public sector is changing dramatically – and we need to embrace ‘Scotland’s Digital Future’ – supporting the transition to a world-leading digital economy. At St Andrews we’re engaging with other educational institutions and public sector bodies to work together and we’re actively looking for opportunities to share knowledge and services.”

The University of St Andrews, which is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year, is committed to reducing its carbon footprint. IT power management has a significant part to play in this. Around 30% of the electricity consumed by the University is used to power ICT equipment, with a large proportion powered 24 hours-a-day.

The University redeveloped an existing building on a brownfield site into a state of the art data centre, which saves the institution at least £65K per year on its electricity bills.

These latest successes add to a number of awards won by IT Services recently. Earlier this year the department received an Honourable Mention for Facility Design Implementation in the Green Enterprise IT Awards 2013 and the department also became the first university in Europe to achieve Two Star Service Desk Institute accreditation.

Last year the department was a finalist in the UK IT Industry Awards.