The Beaverbrook Foundation has announced the creation of a series of journalism prizes and scholarships said to be worth £250,000 a year.
The charity was set up by the first Lord Beaverbrook in 1954. The former Daily Express proprietor turned the paper into the largest selling daily newspaper in the world with a circulation of more than four million in the early 1960s.
The Beaverbrook Foundation is to offer five scholarships, worth £5,000 a year, to students studying journalism at universities throughout the UK.
Each student will also be provided with training through continuous work placements at “a selection of the country’s leading regional newspapers”.
The scholarships are to launch next year with applicants invited to apply through the Beaverbrook Foundation website. The winning applicants will be announced at a new annual Beaverbrook Lecture which is to be delivered by a prominent journalist.
The foundation is also launching a series of new journalism prizes: the young reporter of the year award, the innovation in journalism award and the Beaverbrook prize for lifetime achievement in journalism.
The first two prizes will be worth between £5,000 and £10,000 each. No sum has yet been set for the lifetime achievement award.
The current Lord Beaverbrook said: “A solid grounding within print journalism remains the best training a young reporter can get for a career in media, be it print, radio, broadcast or digital.
“We don’t want to find young talent however being deterred due to the high costs of training.
“The scholarship will support students hoping to break into the world of journalism whilst also recognising and rewarding the best journalists out there already through the three annual awards.
“My grandfather had a lifelong passion for excellence within journalism and I, and the trustees of the foundation, feel the awards and scholarships will be an appropriate way to honour his memory.”
The foundation has said that it intends to hold an annual gala awards ceremony which will be a major opportunity to raise funds for The Journalists’ Charity.
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