To support post-graduate training in micropalaeontology

The Education Fund focuses on aspects of “Deep Time”, by which we mean taxonomy or biostratigraphy at the post-graduate level, i.e. micropalaeontological M.Sc. courses and discipline-specific taxonomy/biostratigraphy short training courses (a few days in length) to eligible TMS members. The fund was not set up to subsidise the training of company employees for their day jobs, and such applications will not be considered. Therefore, academic awards will be made for individual students undergoing post-graduate training in micropalaeontology.

Awards can be made to dedicated micropalaeontology training and to micropalaeontological components of broader courses (e.g. undertaking a micropalaeontological project within a stratigraphy MSc).

MSc Scholarships

Until recently, there were no degree-level training courses in Applied Micropalaeontology in the U.K. or continental Europe. Apart from one or two PhD students, Biostratigraphy was no longer being trained. The Micropalaeontology Society recognised this alarming situation and established an Educational Trust Fund as a Registered Charity in 2011.

This Trust, with eight industry-based trustees, is raising the funds required to finance studentships at those academic locations where micropalaeontologists can still be trained within Europe. For example, TMS support was instrumental in helping the University of Birmingham establish their MSc course “Applied Micropalaeontology”, where we have covered the tuition fees of fourteen students over the 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 & 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 & 2019-20 academic years. Unfortunately, this course will cease at the end of the 2019-20 academic year.

Due to a major income reduction, we can no longer provide MSc-level scholarships.

Short Course Scholarships

Our aim is, funds permitting, to provide support for TMS student members who wish to attend one of the following short courses:

• Urbino Foram Summer School
• Terrestrially-Derived Fossil Palynoflora: Subsurface Application to Petroleum Geology. Master Class
• Polar Marine Diatom Workshop
• INA; Nannofossil short course — these run every two years
• European School on Ostracoda (University of Jena, Germany)

Scholarships for these courses are highly competitive. We hope, funds permitting, to provide a sponsored place on each course when they run. The application deadline of 31st March of each year.

Please get in touch with the TMS Industrial Liaison Officer if you would like information on whether your taught course would be considered for support by TMS Education Fund, whether a proposal by you would be suitable or would like more information on the scheme. Any award is totally at the discretion of the Board of Trustees for the TMS Educational Trust Fund.

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To apply for funding, please use the application form and send it to the Industrial Liaison Officer. 

The following organisations are thanked for their financial contribution to the Education Trust:

BG Group (2012-13)

BP (2012-13)

MMEA (Mediterranean, Middle East & Africa Scout Group; 2014-15)

Shell International (2012-15)

A number of private individual donors are also thanked.

Without the continued support of such organisations and individuals the Trust will be unable to support education in micropalaeontology.

Matt Hall & Agile-Libre are thanks for their generous donations generated from every sale of “52 things you should know about Palaeontology”.

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The Educational Trust is run by a Board of Trustees comprising the following people: