£20,000 grant on offer to support undergraduate placements in SMEs

Grants from the Royal Society of Chemistry of up to £20,000 - to fund a chemistry student during their placement year in a chemically based SME - are open for application. The deadline is Monday 9th November.

 

 

Why  does the Royal Society of Chemistry offer these grants? 

  • To support chemical science R&D based companies in a practical and straightforward way
  • As the shape of the chemistry using sector has changed with a shift towards a greater number of SMEs, the capacity for large companies to host placements has diminished
  • To increase innovation
  • To encourage chemistry graduates into industry and to enhance their research and employability skills
  • And to help bridge the gap between academia and industry.

 Tom Screen, CEO of YproTech  said:  " A great way to encourage and support new SMEs to host a placement student. Brings the potential benefits of placement schemes to SMEs which now make up such a large proportion of the UK chemistry sector."

What do companies get?

  • Successful SMEs will not only receive a grant to cover salary and employer NI for 2016/17 of up to £20,000 but will also have the opportunity to obtain funding to cover 50% of costs for a subsequent placement in 2017/18
  • There is also help with recruiting the student (who must be studying chemistry) through the RSC's partners Cogentskills.
  • This means that the role will be advertised to a very wide number of universities and you will have help shortlisting and arranging interviews.
  • Applicant numbers ranged between 40 -150 for last year's roles. 
  • The final decision on who to select is the company’s.

How to apply

 Further details of the scheme are here and application form is here. Application deadline is Monday November 9th.

 Eligibility and selection

  • You must be a company with under 250 employees in the UK with who carries out chemistry based R&D and you need to join our scheme for small companies: EnterprisePlus
  • Companies must also have been in business for more than two years.

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