Two new scholarships announced

Posted 18 August 2008

Harper Adams University College is delighted to announce a new partnership with the Derbyshire-based Longcliffe group, with the launch of two student scholarships.

The Longcliffe and Vital Earth scholarship programmes will support agriculture and countryside management students respectively, to the tune of £2,000 in each of their second and final years of study at the Shropshire university college.

In the third year, when all Harper Adams students complete a work placement, the students will be employed by the respective firms, with a view to them securing a full-time position on graduation.

Robert Shields, chairman of the privately owned Longcliffe group of companies, said: “I am delighted to be able to further the careers of students on courses that are so relevant to both the extractive industry and the composting industry.”

Professor Wynne Jones, principal of Harper Adams, welcomed the University College’s collaboration with the Longcliffe companies, saying: “Strong links between business and the university sector are a critical foundation for innovation and the provision of high-level skills in the workplace.

“Business support for student scholarships not only provides an investment in young people who are potential industry leaders of the future, but reflects how highly our students are regarded in the market place. We are therefore grateful to Longcliffe and Vital Earth for affording such opportunities to Harper Adams students.”

The Longcliffe scholarship will be open to students on Countryside Management/Countryside and Environmental Management courses, and the VitalEarth scholarship to Agriculture, Agriculture and Crop Management, and Agriculture and Environmental Management students.

In both cases the scholarship offered is open only to students in their second year of a BSc programme. Students will have to apply for the scholarships, and short listed applicants will be interviewed before the scholars are selected.

Vital Earth is an in-vessel composting company and manufacturer of peat-free growing media, fertilizers and soil improvers based on various grades of composted materials. The company has been researching composting technologies since 2000. It now composts green materials using a state of the art process, proven over several years of commercial experience. It has sites at Ashbourne, Derbyshire and Market Drayton, Shropshire.

Longcliffe Quarries Ltd is one of the largest producers of high quality calcium carbonates in the UK – extracting, processing and delivering over 4000 tonnes of limestone products every working day. Limestone produced by Longcliffe brings massive economic and environmental benefits to the whole of the UK. Major agricultural-related uses of our limestone include: agricultural liming & fertilisers, animal and pet feeds, farming and horticulture.