Grant from the IPG Foundation to support professional development
The Independent Publishers Guild is delighted to announce the creation of the IPG Foundation Bursary, a new initiative to help its members support the professional development of its talented members of staff.
The Bursary will provide a total funding pool of £5,000 this year, with grants available to individuals to a maximum of £500 each. The money is intended to pay in full or part for any appropriate course, workshop or other training activity that staff think will help improve their publishing expertise.
The money is intended in particular to help people who are in their first or second jobs in publishing and who are ambitious to progress their careers with IPG members. It should also help publishers operating on tight budgets to access training for the first time.
Applications are open to anyone who works for an IPG member in the UK and who has been working in publishing or a related industry for fewer than five years. Submissions can be made either directly by individuals or on their behalf by a colleague. The deadline for applications is 1 September 2016. Bursaries will be limited to one individual per company per year, though there is no limit to the number of applications that a company can make.
The Bursary is being administered by the IPG Foundation, which has been set up to support members’ development of publishing skills—one of the core aims of the IPG. The £5,000 Bursary has been generously supplied from the IPG Patrons’ Fund, established by publishers who have sold their businesses or retired but wish to continue supporting the IPG’s activities, and separate to the IPG’s core funds. A board of Patrons led by former IPG honorary president Sonny Leong will coordinate the scheme and allocate Bursaries.
IPG chief executive Bridget Shine said: “IPG members employ an incredible range of talented and ambitious people, and our recent Independent Publishing Report showed that staff training and retention is a very important issue for them. We are constantly looking for new ways to support independent publishers and hope this new Bursary will give valuable new training opportunities to people who might otherwise not receive them. Publishing needs to do everything it can to encourage the next generation of publishers, and this scheme will help equip our members with even more skills. We are very grateful to the IPG Foundation and Patrons for making it possible.”
If your company is a member of the IPG, visit their website to apply.