Rio Tinto signs education partnership with Imperial College London

New package of scholarships and support for Imperial's engineering students - News

Tuesday 15 May 2012
By John-Paul Jones

Rio Tinto today announces a new package of scholarships and support for teaching at Imperial College London as the College joins Rio Tinto’s Global Education Partnerships Programme. The Programme will establish a worldwide network of leading universities supporting the training of future engineers which are in great demand by the mining industry globally. 

The Imperial partnership will be built around a series of education-related initiatives including scholarships to provide 12 academically outstanding Imperial undergraduates with financial support and access to mining-related work experience opportunities. Rio Tinto will also fund a teaching fellow position in Geology in the College’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering for a period of five years, commencing in 2012, as well as supporting geology field trips for first year Earth Science and Engineering students who travel to Urra in Spain for hands-on site experience. 

The scholarship framework will support the shared focus of both Rio Tinto and Imperial College to encourage students from a diverse range of backgrounds to consider careers within the mining sector. 

The scholarships will be awarded to students from five of Imperial’s Engineering departments, supporting the students in the second, third and final years of their courses. Alongside the financial support the students will have mentoring and internship opportunities with Rio Tinto as well as the chance to enter its engineering graduate programme. 

The Signing Ceremony at Imperial

Professor Jan Cilliers, Head of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, said:

"We’re delighted to have Rio Tinto’s support for engineering education at Imperial. As well as helping us ensure courses remain relevant to industry today, this link with Rio Tinto also gives our students excellent opportunities to gain hands-work experience and form early links with a sector many of them will be heading for." 

Rio Tinto Chief Financial Officer, Guy Elliott said "Rio Tinto has a longstanding and productive relationship with Imperial and we are excited to further strengthen this partnership. It is vital for Rio Tinto to support the development of leading edge technology and to attract the best and brightest students to ensure that we continue to lead the industry in the field of technology and innovation." 

The company’s existing relationship with Imperial College London includes the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Recovery and the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Challenge. The Challenge is a five-year initiative funded by Rio Tinto which aims to harness the creativity of Imperial’s students in order to make sports more accessible to people with disabilities and to improve the sporting and training equipment available to them. 

In 2012 Rio Tinto welcomed more than 300 graduates into the business, joining the 4,000-plus graduate and postgraduate staff already working within the company.