Date: 25 August 2000
The University of Aberdeen has received a gift from a Scottish businessman to establish a studentship in the anthropology of the Arctic regions as part of a project entitled Sustainable Use of Living Marine Resources in the Arctic (SULMAR).
Mr Angus Pelham Burn has donated a gift of shares to the University to establish the Pelham Burn Studentship in the Anthropology of the North.
Mr Pelham Burn has recently retired as Chairman of Aberdeen Asset Management and as a Director of the Bank of Scotland and is a non-executive Director of Dana Petroleum. He is Chairman of the North of Scotland Board of the Bank of Scotland, and of the Aberdeen Airport Consultative Committee. He also was Chairman of Scottish Provident.
He and his wife have visited Greenland and the Arctic on many occasions, and with his wife, has also been to Antarctica. He lived in Northern Canada for over seven years working for the Hudson’s Bay Company and maintains a keen interest in the Polar regions.
This studentship is linked to the Sustainable Use of Living Marine Resources in the Arctic (SULMAR) project of the International Arctic Science Committee, a non-governmental organisation whose aim is to encourage and facilitate co-operation in all aspects of Arctic research, in all countries engaged in Arctic research and in all areas of the Arctic Region. Professor Mark Nuttall of the Department of Sociology is one of two Project Leaders for SULMAR.
The student will be involved in research on issues relating to the sustainability of communities dependent on living marine resources, such as the Inuit, and understanding the social and environmental consequences of global change for these communities.
Mr Pelham Burn said: “I have been most impressed with Prof Mark Nuttall’s very worthwhile research. I hope that the money donated will allow the continuation of research in the Arctic, which is such an important area of the world.”
He said: “I also hope that coming out of that research will be clear answers to how the Northern Hemisphere is affecting the Arctic and how the global economy impacts on the cultural, social and economic situations of the Inuit, and what the impacts may be of oil and gas exploration and tourism to the region. And I very much hope that the researcher who will be funded by this money will get some sense of the enjoyment of the Arctic which I have experienced.”
Mr Pelham Burn and his wife, Anne, visited the University during the recent Inuit Studies Conference, a major international Inuit conference on the increasingly complex and problematic relationship between the peoples, resources, environment and global processes in the Arctic. It was the first time that a conference of this type was held in a country without an indigenous Inuit population.
Mr Ben Morton Wright, Executive Director of the University of Aberdeen Development Trust said: “The changes involved in this year’s Budget make the gift of shares of this kind possible. We are delighted that Angus Pelham Burn has chosen to support the University through the creation of this studentship.”
Further information from:
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.