Julie Webb discovers how the Nuffield Foundation’s schools and colleges science bursary scheme is helping create the scientitists of the future

The Nuffield Foundation’s Schools and Colleges science bursary scheme is a national programme enabling KS5 students between years 12 and 13 (half-way through an advanced or higher-level course) to carry out a work placement in an area of science, technology, engineering or mathematics which they are considering studying at university, or following via a vocational training path.

Some apply for placements already set up at a particular industrial or research company, or academic institution — others arrange their own, with the help of teachers or organisations. Projects last from four to six weeks, and students receive a weekly grant of £80. Afterwards, they are encouraged to share their thoughts on the experience with as wide an audience as possible.

Around 1,000 UK students benefited from the scheme in 2010 — 32 were from Oxfordshire, where placements covered a wide range of fields, including robot building at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, characterising new monoclonal antibodies at OxFabs, and analysing the surface chemistry of steel for packaging at Crown Packaging UK.

Megan Carter, from Chipping Norton School, worked with the Movement Science Research Group at Oxford Brookes University. “It is a group that looks at the way people move and how this movement can be affected, for example by different neurological conditions. Everybody was really welcoming and gave me the opportunity to experience lots of different things the group is part of, as well as having an individual project that I had to complete. It was a fantastic way to broaden my experience of the application of science outside the classroom.”

Dr Alison Burdett is from Toumaz Technology, a company based in Milton Park, near Abingdon, which makes semi-conductor devices and associated software for wireless patient monitoring — enabling patients to walk around freely rather than being restrictively attached to various machines.

Toumaz joined the scheme as a project provider for the first time in 2010, and Alison took on responsibility for the placements of the two students they selected — Nazrul Islam, from Cherwell School, and Matthew Fisher, from Marlborough School.

“I feel strongly about encouraging young people into science and engineering,” she said. “The work we do here is very interesting. Students can grasp it quite easily and, I hope, go away with a feeling that engineering is a positive career, very relevant to everyday life. I had the experience of something similar myself.

“We chose our two because their interests lay in the biological side of engineering — you have to know some physiology to understand an ECG signal. We assigned each of them a mentor: someone nearer their own age than the rest of us, about three years out of university,” Alison explained.

“The students helped with data-gathering, recording patients’ names and actions – because our product is quite new, there is not much information on the databases yet – and when we realised how really, really competent they were they did some visual data analysis of traces.”

Socially, said Alison, they fitted in fine.

“They were both great. They started off quite quiet and then gradually got involved in some of the activities like table football. What they did was very useful to us - and for them, with university admissions getting tough, it will be a benefit to have the placement on their CV and be able to discuss the work at an interview.”

Dr Liz Jenkinson, from Green Biologics, also on Milton Park, has been involved with the Nuffield scheme for five years.

The company uses advanced fermentation processes to turn waste products into useful chemicals, particularly a fuel, biobutanol.

“We sent an outline of the project we were planning to the Nuffield co-ordinator, and received the application forms from her so that we could make our selection,” Dr Jenkinson said.

“The student we had this year, Victoria Foster from Henley College, wanted to do a placement to help her decide if she wanted to go into science, and if so, what branch.

“She was working on genetic manipulation, which is a molecular biology-based field, trying to improve a bacterial strain through genetically marking the cells.

“Students study these concepts at school but it is a great help to actually put them into practice in a lab, and it gives them something that makes them stand out from other would-be undergraduates. All our previous four students went off to do science courses,” Dr Jenkinson added.

Kristian Fox, from Fitzharrys School, Abingdon, was interested in geology, and looking for an opportunity to find out more about it.

“I applied for the scheme because, while I had seen a lot of posters and bulletins at sixth form for the more mainstream subjects like engineering and computing, I had not seen anything relevant to earth science,” he said.

“After checking what past students had done with Nuffield bursaries I realised that this was a good chance to get something closer to my interests. I also saw an advert from the British Geological Survey offering places on the Nuffield bursary scheme to celebrate their 175th anniversary.”

Kristian’s project concerned a survey of groundwater in East Cumbrian sandstone, and involved testing sample cores from this area for permeability.

“It was a really significant four weeks,” he said. “It has made me certain that I want to study earth science at university. I not only learnt a huge amount about groundwater, which was a topic completely new to me, but a surprisingly beneficial part of the project was the incredible opportunity to talk to loads of geologists and see the merits of different career choices in geology.

“As a bonus I got an invitation to attend the annual symposium, with speakers such as David Attenborough and Iain Stewart and the top US Geological Survey and BGS scientists. Their presentations gave me a great overview of geology’s newest areas of research, and also its origins as a discipline and its role in the big picture of human understanding.”

Students who may be interested in applying in the spring for a bursary in summer 2011 should contact the scheme’s Oxfordshire co-ordinator for further information: Natasha Verniquet, Science Oxford, 1-5 London Place, Oxford, OX4 1BD (01865 728953) or e-mail Natasha.Verniquet@scienceoxford.com