LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Premier Farnell plc (LSE:PFL), the leading multi-channel, high service distributor and its companies (Farnell, Newark, Premier Electronics, Farnell-Newark CPC, and MCM), announces that scholarships applications are now being accepted from individual students worldwide who are registered in a full time Electrical and Electronics Engineering course in the 2009 entry year. Scholarship information, including the application form and terms and conditions, are available on the element14 website at http://www.element-14.com/community/community/liveedge. Applications will be accepted through the 31^st of August 2009 and winners will be announced on the 1^st of October 2009.

Applicants will be required to answer one of three questions. They can explain the importance of their electrical engineering degree in today and tomorrow’s society and how they plan in using it to better the environment. Alternatively, they can either explain how they feel electronics design will change in the coming years or what new technology will have the biggest impact on electronics in the near future.

The scholarships have been created from the $30,000 USD prize money that remained after a student division winner was not named for the 2008 Live EDGE Electronic Design Global Environment challenge. The scholarship awards will be evenly distributed between Asia, Europe and the Americas, allotting $10,000 for each region or four $2,500 individual scholarships per region.

“Encouraging innovation and forward thinking among engineering students is paramount to the development and sustainability of future generations of design engineers,” said Harriet Green, Chief Executive Officer of Premier Farnell. “The Live EDGE scholarship fund will help to encourage and develop 12 students enabling them to continue or start their education for the year to come. We are excited that through these scholarships we are able to support students as they strive to become leaders in critical environmental design practices.”

About Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:PFL) is a leading high service, multi-channel distributor of electronic, and industrial products and specialist services throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. It goes to market with a differentiated value proposition, world-class marketing, a stocked range of 450,000+ products, and access to 4,000,000 more items from 3,500 top manufacturers. The company has group sales of £804.4m and over 4,100 employees globally.

While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognizes the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalize its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in the UK, India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico, and Premier Electronics in China. In Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Brazil the operation is known as Farnell Newark.

Premier Farnell has participated in the Business in the Community CR Index for three years and has been one of the ‘biggest improvers’ in the index in the last two years. The company is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index of Corporate and Social Responsibility and has published its own Corporate Social Responsibility report since 2002.

For more information visit the website at www.premierfarnell.com