Grant awards to aid STEM skills and employability announced by Dudgeon
The Dudgeon Community Fund has announced that eight organisations in Norfolk have been successful in gaining grant awards from its pilot funding scheme - the Dudgeon STEM Skills and Employability Fund for Younger People.
This pilot funding opportunity was launched in late 2022 following numerous reports on skills gaps in Norfolk highlighting groups of young people, and young adults, aged 30 years and under, which are underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and training initiatives.
Grant applications for a highly innovative range of STEM based projects to be delivered in the Great Yarmouth, North Norfolk and Breckland regions of Norfolk were received by the Norfolk Community Foundation on behalf of the Dudgeon Community Fund. Projects which were awarded grants include:
- providing an entry route into STEM subjects through the creative media
- creating and delivering a new clean energy teaching resource
- sixth form workshops covering seasonal related STEM topics including a dye garden in springtime, remanufacturing tourist industry plastics over the summer and solitary bee cocoon sessions in the winter
- setting up a tree nursery and wildlife meadow for learners with additional needs
- an Aspirations Project for vulnerable groups including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers
- running courses for students to gain practical experience working on an offshore floating wind turbine project
Ross McMillan
The Dudgeon Community Fund is financed by the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm and operated by Equinor. In announcing these grants, Ross McMillan, Dudgeon Plant Manager at Equinor, said:
“Although the grant applications came from a diverse range of charities and not for profit organisations, it was clear that they each had extensive experience in working with the groups being targeted by this pilot initiative.
“The applications demonstrated an impressive range of practical initiatives designed to engage individuals and groups in STEM subjects, and my colleagues and I hope to have the opportunity to observe the delivery of some of these projects at first hand.”
The Dudgeon STEM Skills and Employability Fund for Younger People is additional to the Dudgeon Community Fund Schools STEM Programme, for which grant awards for the 2023/24 academic year will be announced during June 2023.
About Equinor in Norfolk
Equinor is a long-term partner for Norfolk and has been an active member of the community for over a decade through the Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon wind farms it operates off the Norfolk coast.
The Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm is owned by Equinor, Masdar and China Resources, whilst Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm is owned by Equinor, Equitix Offshore 5 (co-owned by Equitix and the Renewable Investment Group TRIG) and a fund managed by Macquarie Asset Management).
On behalf of its partners, Equinor is also maturing the proposed Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon extension projects (SEP and DEP). SEP and DEP
will double the capacity of the existing Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon wind farms, providing renewable energy to power an additional 785,000 UK homes
and making an important contribution to the UK’s decarbonisation goals.
Currently, the combined output of Sheringham Shoal and Dudgeon wind farms is
sufficient to power around 710,000 UK homes, and the proposed extensions will increase that to nearly 1.5 million UK households.
Both wind farms have established community funds which in total have awarded over £1 million to projects in Norfolk. The funds were set up to provide grants to Norfolk community groups, including schools and charities, seeking financial assistance for projects or initiatives that meet key criteria and focus on renewable energy, marine environment and safety, sustainability, or education in these areas. During 2020, the funds provided grant funding to the Norfolk Community Foundation’s COVID-19 funding initiatives, and during 2021 grant funding has been made available to support Norfolk’s ‘every child on-line’ initiative.
Issue date: 25-05-23
For media enquiries, please contact:
Alice Baxter
UK Media Relations Manager, Equinor
abax@equinor.com
+44 7557973941
For consultation or community enquiries, please contact:
Nigel Tompkins, the Projects’ Community Liaison Officer based in Norfolk,
E-mail: nigel@ni4b.co.uk