£300,000 funding for Harper Adams

Posted 14 March 2012

Harper Adams University College has secured around £300,000 in grants to support a series of new research projects and a scholarship scheme.

The first is a three year PhD studentship looking at pig nutrition - the ‘effect of macro nutrients and phytase on mineral digestibility and immunology in weaned pigs’.

This has received £45,000 of funding from AB Vista and Primary Diets and £45,000 from the Silcock Fellowship for Livestock Research.
 
Former Harper Adams student, Stephen Mansbridge from Burgess Hill, West Sussex, will be conducting the work.

The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has pledged around £75,000 towards research that will look at reducing river pollution from farming. This is entitled an ‘independent systematic review of impact of on-farm mitigation measures for delivering an improved water environment’.

Dr Nicola Randall and other staff at the University College will be working alongside Dr Barbara Smith of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust for the duration of the eight month project.

A grant has been given to support a two year student scholarship scheme in the poultry industry, sponsored by the British Poultry Council.

Students will undertake a work placement under the supervision of an academic tutor, which will allow them to gain practical and technical knowledge. The funding provides a cash reward paid to the student on completion of the placement.

The final grant is of more than £120,000 for a two year project that will develop a small-scale farm waste digester by working with a plastic tank manufacturer.

This is entitled how to ‘design, optimise and produce a cost-effective, reliable, and efficient micro-scale anaerobic digester for local organic waste processing and energy production at farm/food business scale’.

This project is sponsored by a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and will be supervised by Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Technologies, Dr Andrea Humphries.