Education

We support education because it increases opportunities among communities and provides skills that are critical to BP

Our involvement in education is diverse and wide ranging. We help to fund a range of educational programmes, from early years learning to advanced university research, building skills and capability in communities. We aim to expand the talent available to BP and other energy companies, while also advancing knowledge on issues such as climate change and the effective economic management of natural resource-rich countries.

University-level programmes

Much of our support for further and higher education is targeted on the development of specific skills needed by the energy industry, such as petroleum engineering and geoscience. As technical professionals from the US and Europe born in the 1950s/1960s reach retirement age, we are backing educational efforts to replace them, with a particular emphasis on encouraging people from the developing economies where we work to take up careers in these areas.

Supporting geoscience in Trinidad & Tobago In 2008, BP stepped up its support for geoscience engineering education at the University of the West Indies by sponsoring an MSc professorship in petroleum and reservoir engineering. Since 2001 BP’s investment of over $1 million in BSc level degrees at the university has enabled over 100 people from Trinidad & Tobago become graduates. Several energy companies operating in the country have hired from this pool of graduates, including 17 who have been taken on by BP.

Supporting education around the world

Backing energy-related studies in the US BP is funding programmes in energy-related disciplines at the Louisiana State University and the University of Houston (UH), where it supports scholarships in engineering, science, mathematics and business. BP has a prominent presence at UH, which is close to BP’s facilities, recruiting around 25 students a year from the university as employees and interns.

Supporting climate change research We continue to support efforts to advance understanding of climate change. In addition to a 10-year, $500 million commitment to the Energy Biosciences Institute, US, to progress biofuels-related research, BP has renewed its backing for the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, a research programme at Princeton University, US, examining ways of tackling climate change.

Climate change

School level programmes

In supporting school education, BP looks to develop children’s awareness of links between energy and the environment as well as stimulating interest in science and engineering.

The UK Schools Link 2008 marked the 40th anniversary of the BP Schools link programme in the UK, which enables children to visit BP's plants and laboratories and BP staff to make visits to schools. Today, around 650 employees volunteer regularly at more than 200 schools. Work with schools in the UK also includes providing education resources used by over half the country’s secondary schools and a ‘carbon challenge’ road-show which enables students to examine their school’s environmental impacts.

A+ for Energy programme In eight US states and the Canadian province of Alberta , we run the A+ for Energy programme which awards grants of $5,000 or $10,000 directly to teachers who demonstrate innovation and excellence in teaching students about energy and energy conservation. Under the programme, in 2009, BP will award up to $4 million in grants and scholarships to fund classroom, after-school, extra-curricular, or summer projects.