Alumnus funds prize to celebrate excellence in real estate and land management

02 Sep 2020

The Royal Agricultural University (RAU) has launched a generous new prize, funded by alumnus Richard Pilkington of Pilkington Farms Partnership, which will see the recipient awarded their final year tuition fee based on sustained, excellent, academic performance throughout the first two years of study.

The Pilkington Farms Partnership Prize will be given to the top, second-year undergraduate student in the RAU’s School of Real Estate and Land Management (RELM), with the final year’s fees (currently £9,250) awarded as a fee-waiver in their third year.

The Pilkington Farms Partnership Prize has been created together with Richard Pilkington (pictured) Director of Pilkington Farms Partnership, an arable and livestock farming partnership based in Hertfordshire with farms in both Yorkshire and Hertfordshire.

Richard Pilkington said of the award: "We, here at Pilkington Farms Partnership, are delighted to sponsor this prize. All those working in the agri and environmental industries are faced with ever more complex issues and the need for professional expertise to solve these has never been more needed. We are delighted that the RAU will be educating, encouraging and emboldening a new generation to take on this challenge and that we can play a small part in helping them do so."

The prize is open to all undergraduate students in their second year studying a degree within the School of RELM and will be awarded based on cumulative academic performance up to the end of the second year.

William Leschallas, Head of the School of RELM said: “I am so grateful to Richard for offering this generous award and for his ongoing support for the RAU. This prize offers a great opportunity for a student who joins one of our undergraduate courses, and I hope it will encourage students to push themselves to perform to the best of their abilities and achieve excellence.”