Details of 10 new industry-funded, undergraduate agri-food scholarships to mark the 150th year of University College Dublin have been announced by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Ms Coughlan.
The faculty of agri-food and the environment launched the 10 scholarships, one for each of its undergraduate degree programmes.
They will be funded by operators in the agri-food sector.
A scholarship of €20,000 will be awarded to the student who enters each programme with the highest mark in a nominated Leaving Cert exam subject.
The 10 scholarships will be open to students who enter the faculty in September 2006, thus allowing current fifth-year students to consider the programmes on offer.
The faculty, having expanded in recent years, offers a range of programmes from landscape architecture, horticulture, landscape and sports-turf management to forestry, animal science, food science, and food and agribusiness management.
These reflect the changing needs of the agri-food industry.