Ørsted has announced the winners of the first round of its new GBP 75,000 Skills Fund, which forms a part of the company’s GBP 465,000 East Coast Community Fund 20-year annual commitment.
The funding will see two organisations share GBP 55,000 for projects that will deliver Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) related educational activities.
The Grimsby Institute will receive GBP 41,675 to build on existing investment and expertise and create an annual programme of events designed to inform and spark curiosity to over 2000 students in junior, secondary and higher education across the coastal zones of North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, East Riding of Yorkshire and East Lincolnshire, UK.
The second award of GBP 13,325 goes to Alderman Peel High School in Norfolk who will develop a sustainable STEM development and outreach project over a two-year period where STEM teachers will work with employers to embed real life project activities into the National Curriculum. It will involve Year 7 and Year 8 students, local employers, teachers and external mentors.
A further GBP 20,000 has been targeted to four colleges to help finance local students who are unable to access traditional funding streams for support. The colleges to benefit with grants of GBP 5,000 each are East Riding College, Boston College, the College of West Anglia, and the Grimsby Institute.
“We were really pleased to see such a positive reaction to this first round of the STEM Skills Fund which clearly demonstrates the significance and demand for funding of this type within the region. Encouraging and enabling young people to develop STEM skills at an early age is of great importance to us, and this is just one of the ways we are doing that,” Matthew Wright , Managing Director Ørsted UK, said.
“I am delighted to also announce that we will be repeating the application process again next year, and look forward to supporting more STEM activities within the region.”
The fund is being administered by the independent grant-making charity GrantScape.
As part of its community engagement programme, Ørsted launched the East Coast Community fund in December last year and will make available up to GBP 9.3 million in total to ensure that local people benefit from the operations of its 580MW Race Bank and 1.2GW Hornsea Project One offshore wind farms.