Students at Southampton will soon be benefiting from a £1m scholarship programme to encourage engineers, scientists and innovators to be run by the Ford Motor Company The scheme, called The Ford Blue Oval Scholarship Programme, will provide scholarships over three years of £10,000 each for ten Southampton students doing degrees in engineering, science and technology.

The announcement was made by William Clay Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford and the Chief Executive of the Ford Motor Company and is part of a celebration of 100 years of Ford's operation in the UK. In the UK Ford has been the market leader in car sales for 35 years and commercial vehicle sales for 46 years and currently directly employs 15000 people.

The scholarship fund is being divided between 100 undergraduates from 10 of the UK's leading universities including Imperial College London, Nottingham and Bath. 10 of these students will be from Southampton. In response to the announcement of the programme, University of Southampton Vice Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam said:

'I am delighted that Ford has selected the University of Southampton to be a potential recipient of scholarships which will be of huge benefit to some of our brightest students. This will also have a significant positive impact promoting both study at this University and a future career in the automotive'