Industry increases UKESF scholarship support by 70 per cent Strategic Advisory Board calls for more engagement from the electronics systems community

Indro Mukerjee, Chairman of the UKESF Strategic Advisory Board and CEO of Plastic Logic said: The feedback from everyone participating has been very positive indeed and it's encouraging to see that an increasing number of companies recognise the need to collaborate in grassroots support through programmes such as UKESF. Our next challenge is to engage more of the electronic systems community and we are now calling on all firms with electronics graduate interests to be a part of the UKESF national programme



Peter Frith, CTO at Wolfson Microelectronics and recent UKESF recruit said: We are delighted to be joining the UKESF scholarship programme this year, through which we are helping maintain the UK's strong technology and engineering sector, and developing and nurturing key skills necessary for a dynamic and world-class business.

UKESF scholars recruited last year have just completed their summer work placements with their sponsors. Nick Salter, Vice President of Program Management at CSR, a founder partner of UKESF, said: The professionalism, logical thinking and aptitude demonstrated by the scholars is comparable to what we would expect from a graduate with a few years of industry experience and they integrated into the teams remarkably well.



Feedback from the scholars was that they found the placements useful, with opportunities to put existing learning to real use, and to learn some completely new skills - and of course to see what is it like working and contributing in a fast-moving industry. It's really great for CSR as a company to have a hand in promoting electronics in this way.

The additional industry funding brings the UKESF closer to meeting its 2014 target of 160 scholarships per year. Scholarships have been designed with industry in mind and the flexible programme can start from any year of a student's degree, lasting for the continuation of the course.



UKESF was founded in 2010 by collaboration of public bodies, private companies and UK universities to address the threat of a diminishing skills base in the UK electronics sector. Its principal aims are to increase and sustain the supply of industry ready graduate engineers and boost career take up in the industry, worth £23 billion per year to the UK economy.