In 1998 the late Michael Dickson CBE FREng and the founding trustees of the Happold Foundation set up the Happold Student Scholarship programme, which provided engineering students an 8 week paid summer placement at Buro Happold (BH), and a bursary to help towards costs of their final year at university. It is the longest running initiative the Foundation has sponsored and has been recognised by both our University partners and within BH for attracting highly talented and creative engineering students year on year. We are very proud of our alumni of 480 scholars, many of whom have forged very successful careers in engineering and design in the built environment. A large number entered Buro Happold’s graduate engineer programme and we are excited that some are still with BH today.
In 2021, the Happold Foundation conducted a review of its aims and strategy to check that the initiatives it supports is current and relevant and addresses the important issues of today in an impactful and meaningful way. A survey was conducted and the findings, particularly around education, highlighting a strong call to action on diversity. Education activities should be targeted at those who will benefit most and find it hardest to access support to enter and progress in the engineering sector.
The trustees have always taken diversity seriously: since 1998 scholars have come from a broad range of geographical, cultural, ethnic and gender backgrounds. Every year for the last five years, 50% of the scholars selected were women. However, the Trustees recognise that they do not have the experience, or resources to raise diversity to the next level. Others can do this far better than we. So we spoke to our friends at the Royal Academy of Engineering, with whom the Happold Foundation has been collaborating with for the past three years on its successful Graduate Engineering Engagement Programme (GEEP).
Together the Foundation and the Academy have created an enhanced Engineering Leaders Scholarship, which will provide six scholars with funding to be used over three years towards career personal development activities. Scholars will also be offered a paid internship with Buro Happold, providing practical, hands-on work experience. Awardees will be from groups currently under-represented in the UK engineering profession and preference will be given to students studying degrees related to the built and natural environment, including associated degrees such as computer science. The Foundation and the Academy welcome the opportunity to continue our work in partnership, to diversify the UK engineering workforce and provide opportunities to ambitious and talented students to take their first steps towards successful engineering careers. The scholarships are offered as part of the Academy’s existing Engineering Leaders Scholarship (ELS) scheme, further details of which can be found here.
While the Happold Foundation is no longer offering a student scholarship through the traditional route, Buro Happold will still run their summer internship programme. The application window for Summer 2022 has now closed but will reopen in September/October 2022 for the summer 2023 programme.