Thanks to the contribution of leading Australian engineering firm Clough Limited, the student experience for first year engineering students at UWA will be elevated to a new level with the establishment of the Clough First Year Centre. The UWA-Clough partnership agreement provides dedicated student space for first years in the crucial transition from school to university with the establishment of this 24/7 home base.

Winthrop Professor David Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics said he was "delighted that through the generous contribution of Clough Limited, this project can go ahead and believes the centre will be an innovation which will greatly benefit our first year engineering students." Work on the Clough First Year Centre along with the Monadelphous Integrated Learning Centre commences in 2009 and both Centres are expected to be ready for students in 2010.

In other industry partnerships established with UWA, Apache has provided prizes and eight scholarships in which will assist students to embark on careers in engineering and geoscience.

Western Power has also continued its generous support by awarding Western Power Electrical Engineering Scholarships to 37 students majoring in power engineering in their second, third and fourth year studies.

Through the generous support of the UWA Civil Engineering Futures Foundation 150 laptops have been provided to second year civil engineering students for the third consecutive year. In April, BHP Billiton Iron Ore provided a further 25 laptops to mining engineering students. These initiatives provide the opportunity for our engineering students to use technical software packages which greatly assist their studies.

Baker Hughes INTEQ, ConocoPhillips, Laing O'Rourke Ltd, Woodside Energy Limited, Cliffs Natural Resources and Technip Oceania Pty Ltd have also established undergraduate scholarships to support engineering students at UWA. We look forward to furthering fruitful UWA Industry Partnerships. For further information, please Quang Ly on +61 8 6488 4772 or by email quang.ly@uwa.edu.au