Scotland the Brave … and Innovative

Today is St Andrew’s Day, when Scotland celebrates its Patron Saint.  It’s a day for all of us Scots to mark Scotland’s contribution to the UK and indeed to the wider world.

The American author, Arthur Herman, published a book a few years ago entitled “How the Scots invented the Modern World”.  His focus was the remarkable flourishing of discovery, innovation and thought in Scotland in the second half of the 18^th century.  That was the time when people like Adam Smith was founding modern economics, James Watt was powering the industrial revolution with his steam engine and James Hutton was laying the foundations of geology.

This invention and creativity has continued, with successive developments in medicine led by Scottish chemists and physicians, such as the discovery of penicillin, or in telecommunications, such as the invention of the telephone and television by Scottish engineers.  More recently, Dolly the Sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal, was a product of cutting-edge research at the Roslin Institute, part of the University of Edinburgh. The Higgs particle was postulated in the Physics Department of the same university. And earlier this year another Scot, Angus Deaton, won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Of course, Scotland is also the home of golf and formed the backbone of Britain’s victorious Davis Cup team in tennis just yesterday. It is renowned the world over for its whiskies and offers some of the most spectacular scenery in Europe.

Scotland and Singapore

Scotland’s association with Singapore goes back to the foundations of the modern settlement in 1819 when William Farquhar was made the island’s first Resident.  His successor, John Crawford, also from Scotland, established Singapore’s legal system which has proved to be one the pillars of the country’s great success in the last 50 years.  Singapore resident, Graham Berry, will shortly publish a book examining the role of Scotsmen and women in Singapore.

And the links endure.  I was delighted to attend a University of Stirling graduation ceremony in October at the Singapore Institute of Management where Stirling’s programme in Retail Management and Marketing is taught.  We work very closely with Neil McInnes and his colleagues at Scottish Development International to support Scottish companies growing their businesses here – just last month a group of Scottish companies working in the renewable energy sector were at Eden Hall.  Scotland has world class businesses working in the energy, food and beverages, financial services and digital sectors.

Last weekend, along with about 400 others at the Singapore St Andrew’s Society annual St Andrew’s Ball, I celebrated all that is great about Scotland.  And today the Saltire is flying proudly alongside the Union Jack at the High Commission.