A NEW initiative to help oil and gas firms make the most of MA engineering and energy students has been launched by Aberdeen University.
It has set up a Making the Most of Masters program, which aims to help students on more than 200 masters programmes and companies by collaborating on research projects.
The new three-year program, being run jointly by the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Stirling and aided by Scottish Council Funding, is part of the Learning To Work 2 initiative that seeks to improve Scottish graduates’ employability and career prospects within the sector.
But it also aims to help the industry have an input into their future workforce’s skills – as well as utilising salary-free postgraduate talent.
It will see masters students undertake a three-month research project as part of their one-year degree, increasingly within industry.
Employer-suggested projects would range from literature reviews and data analysis, through to technical and operational-level projects including method development and optimisation, mechanical design, subsea, and safety and reliability topics.
Themes and project formats are flexible and tailored towards each company’s needs, said Dr Zachary Hickman, the project’s co-ordinator at Aberdeen University, who said he would welcome any ideas from the industry.
“This is a flexible process whereby companies and organisations can benefit from readily-available expertise, and where we tailor every project towards their needs,” he said.
Professor Paul Mitchell, director at the Institute of Energy Technologies and director of postgraduate programmes at the university, said: “Making the Most of Masters ensures that Scottish masters students receive essential energy-sector-relevant skills throughout their programme of study by linking them with industry to undertake collaborative research projects.
“This increases their employability and ensures that industry has an input to their development.”
Go to www.mastersprojects.ac.uk or contact Dr Zachary Hickman at z.hickman@abdn.ac.uk for more information.