STEM education

We support STEM education programmes in 16 countries where we operate. We are helping to deliver a growing, diverse and talented population of future innovators and leaders who can find solutions to help meet greater energy demand while reducing carbon emissions. NXplorers is our global STEM programme which seeks to enthuse and empower young people and equip them with the tools and skills to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. In 2017, we launched NXplorers in Brazil, Nigeria and Egypt, with plans to launch in other countries including India, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2018. Our goal is that more than 1 million young people participate in the programme worldwide by 2020.

Our STEM programmes also focus on teachers. In Brazil, where a lack of qualified science and technical professionals is hampering the country’s overall development, we launched a project in 2012 that continues to provide teacher training, teaching aids and resources. This includes an award for teachers that recognises the role they play in influencing others and changing their students’ perspective on life. The winning teachers travelled to London on an education trip in 2017.

We held festivals in the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK and the USA in 2017 to support our efforts to promote STEM careers. Around 30,000 visitors, including 10,000 schoolchildren, attended the five-day Generation Discovery festival in the Netherlands.

In 2017, Shell made a second investment of more than £1 million in Tomorrow’s Engineers, a UK STEM programme. Through our investment, we aim to give hands-on engineering experience and career information to more than 160,000 children by 2020.