Edinburgh Napier University is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has over 19,500 students, including those on-campus in Scotland and others studying on transnational programmes abroad and online. In 2016 this included nearly 9,500 international and EU students, from more than 140 nations worldwide.

Napier Technical College was founded in 1964, and took its name from John Napier, the inventor of logarithms and the decimal point.  He was born in 1550 in the medieval tower house of Merchiston Castle, which is now the site of the Merchiston Campus of the university.

In 1966, it was renamed Napier College of Science and Technology and merged with the Sighthull-based Edinburgh College of Commerce to form Napier College of Commerce and Technology, which became a Central Institution in 1985.

The college was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and in the same year acquired the former Hydropathic hospital buildings at Craiglockhart. In June 1992, the institution officially became Napier University. In 1994, Napier University acquired the Craighouse Campus. In 1996, the university gained a new Faculty of Health Studies through a merger between the Scottish Borders College of Nursing and Lothian College of Health Studies. In February 2009, it became Edinburgh Napier University.

Edinburgh Napier University has twice received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize, the first occasion in 2009 for Higher and Further Education, and secondly in 2016 for acclaimed work in timber engineering, sustainable construction and wood science.

The Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University is Professor Andrea Nolan who has been in post since July 2013.