Bursary

In 1999, the Association has started to award bursaries to students as part of their strategy to promote opportunities for the overall expansion of the methanol industry through secure, environmentally friendly applications. This expansion objective embraces the principles of sustainable growth in production and consumption, and of social responsibility. Student bursary schemes are seen as one way of establishing an understanding of this strategy within Universities.

The Association wants to bring the beneficial properties of methanol to the attention and favorable understanding of University departments. This is necessary for the advantageous outcome of IMPCA interaction with official decision making groups or panels. University input here could have a major effect on Government thinking since it is relied on to provide impartial technical and environmental opinion and information. For example, the fuel cell debate is currently strongly centered in this area of discussion. Industry recognition, acceptance and expansion is therefore closely linked to how well the benefits of gas and therefore methanol are understood by civil servants and politicians. If successful it would lead to more direct contact with Government departments and so maintain the impetus.

The Association awards bursaries, through its Executive Committee, generally to students in a technical faculty. It invites students in their last year to propose to study a topic of choice that requires IMPCA bursary funding. It is not necessarily a requirement that this topic is directly methanol related. The Executive Committee will consider any subject to the general interest of the IMPCA Members, provided the proposal is supported by the University. The Association requires the students to present a short paper on the conclusions of their study during one of the Association's regional conferences. It is also expected that a short presentation be given to a student's peer group on the conference attended, the methanol industry in general and how he/she benefited from the bursary.

In 2005 a bursary was awarded to a student from the University of Tokyo, who used the funds to participate in the "International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM 2005)". A poster presentation on the research carried out on fuel-cell membranes was prepared for this conference.

In 2006 a bursary was awarded to a student from the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands) who carried out his final thesis work on a subject supporting the development of a market for clean alcohol fuel stoves (Project Gaia). Another student of this university received a bursary for his thesis work on ' A Global Synthetic Fuel Alliance'

Students interested in a bursary are requested to contact the secretariat at info@impca.be who will forward any correspondence to the Executive Committee.

Please contact the secretariat at info@impca.be who will forward any correspondence to the Executive Committee.