Morson STEM Foundation wins prestigious REC Award for Community Initiative of the Year
Morson Group rounded off the year with another award, picking up Community Initiative of the Year at the annual Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) Awards 2023!
The REC Awards celebrate accomplishment across various tiers and fields, embodying the UK’s exceptional recruitment expertise and excellence. Winning an award highlights the recipient as a prominent individual or entity in the recruitment sector, fostering their future triumphs and professional growth by setting them apart from rivals and unlocking pathways to further prospects. Winning an REC Award is the most prestigious industry recognition an individual or company can achieve.
The Community Initiative of the Year award was won for our work with the Morson STEM Foundation.
The Morson STEM Foundation
Our purpose is to positively impact lives every day. Every member of our Group is driven to fuel innovation, empower industry and enable opportunities for people.
As a leading technical recruiter, we experience first-hand the issues caused by talent shortages in our industries. The Morson STEM Foundation aims to increase the talent pipeline for STEM by widening participation and creating pathways into education and training. By collaborating with businesses to understand their skills needs and aligning them with a strategy for creating career opportunities – the Morson STEM Foundation is developing skills, delivering social value, and creating brighter futures.
The Foundation is delivered through the long-standing partnership with The University of Salford and the Morson Maker Space who bring together a programme of activity in collaboration with regional skill providers, local employers, and industry stakeholders to raise the profile of STEM nationally.
Gerry Mason Engineering Scholarships
Morson Group established the Gerry Mason Engineering Excellence Scholarship in 2015, in memory of Morson founder Gerry Mason, a design engineer himself. The scholarship continues his legacy by enabling budding engineers to study degree-level courses rooted in STEM.
The goal of the scholarship has been to help young people from across the country reach their full potential, by removing financial and social barriers to attending university. Since 2015 we have granted 53 scholarships, and of those 37 scholars have now graduated.
The Morson Maker Space
A cornerstone of the Morson STEM Foundation is the new state-of-the-art Morson Maker Space facility which forms part of the University of Salford‘s new £65 million Science, Engineering & Environment Building. The facilities have been designed to provide students with opportunities to explore new ideas and innovate, gaining hands-on experience with the types of equipment they can expect to use when they move from education into the workplace.
Creating STEM advocates
We partnered with ITN to produce a broadcast standard, sector focused news-style video titled The Morson STEM Foundation: Securing opportunities for future generations. The style and production value of the feature gives real weight to our promotion of the foundation and allows us to reach audiences who may not otherwise be familiar with us.
However, our most powerful promotion comes from our STEM Ambassadors.
60+ Morson Engineers have trained to become STEM Ambassadors and will be working with schools in the North-West and further afield to support their curriculum with STEM workshops and activities. To engage children in critical thinking, to boost curiosity and introduce them to a world of STEM opportunities. Our STEM Ambassadors have been registered through STEM Learning, carrying out their induction and checks in addition to our own in-house training.
Our people are our most powerful advocates and they truly demonstrate our belief that Morson exists to make a positive difference to people’s lives, our clients, candidates, contractors, colleagues and the communities in which we work.
One REC Awards judge commented:
“I couldn’t have been more impressed with your entry. Please do pass on my genuine commendation to the wonderful people putting the work in at the STEM Foundation.”
Dr Maria Stukoff Maker Space, director from the University of Salford, said:
“It has been wonderful to welcome back students for the new academic year with this fantastic new Morson Maker Space facility, which offers them the freedom to explore their ideas and learn valuable, practical skills. The Mason family and Morson Group’s generosity will not only be celebrated at this event, but for years to come by generations of students who will benefit from the success of a local company that has given back to the Salford community in such a tangible and lasting way.”
The Morson STEM Foundation aims to support people from all backgrounds explore, and pursue, pathways into engineering-related careers. Find out more here
