RPA launches new scholarship

Retail Planning Associates has launched the RPA Scholarship Foundation, which will provide an annual award of 6500 and a work placement to one UK or US design student every year.

Second- and final-year design students are eligible for the

new scholarship, which will be awarded on the basis of excellence in strategic retail design. “The foundation is a way to support student design work that demonstrates mastery of consumer behaviour and market research,” says RPA chief executive Doug Cheesman.

Jeremy Myerson, professor of contemporary design at De Montfort University in Leicester, describes the RPA scholarship as a welcome addition to existing bursaries “because it promotes a strategic view of retail design and encourages designers to take more account of branding and consumer behaviour”.