University of Aberdeen offers 20% study discount to help people in Moray, Shire and city retrain amid Covid-19 impact
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THE University of Aberdeen is offering a 20 per cent discount on postgraduate study to help support local people and businesses in responding to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The regional discount scheme – known as the University of Aberdeen Community Discount – is open to all residents of Moray, Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City who plan to apply, or who have applied, to programmes with a January 2021 start date.
Almost all the university’s full-time postgraduate study programmes are open to applicants under the scheme.
These span multiple disciplines including energy, engineering, business and finance, computing and mathematics, and biological and life sciences.
The university hopes to support local people and businesses to either retrain and/or upskill in light of the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on the local economy and people’s livelihoods.
It is already offering hundreds of free places on its online short courses in 2020 and 2021, supported by £600,000 in funding from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) through its SFC Upskilling Fund.
Launching the scheme today, University of Aberdeen principal Professor George Boyne said: "I am acutely aware of the impact of Covid-19 on the city and the region as a whole, and as a university community we are determined to play our part in helping local communities deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.
"In recent months we have been looking carefully at further ways in which we can offer to help protect people’s livelihoods and support local businesses.
"The SFC Upskilling Fund is just one example of how we acted early to provide support to local people, and we are now going further by offering this discount to help residents of Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray to retrain or upskill, depending on their circumstances.
"We also hope this will help local businesses in the region, many of which have had to adapt considerably to the challenges presented by Covid-19, and where there is now a great demand for skills training."
Prof Boyne added that the move was an indication of the university’s broader efforts to apply the principles of Aberdeen 2040, its long-term strategy launched earlier this year to mark the institution’s 525th anniversary.
He said: "Aberdeen 2040 makes clear our intention to act on the principles of our 1495 foundational purpose to serve our region and the wider world, by being open to all and dedicated to the pursuit of truth in the service of others.
"While our horizons have expanded over the last five centuries, our commitment to serve our region has remained a core ethos, and as a university we will continue to act to support the local and national economic recovery as part of our wider institutional response to Covid-19."
