The Lord Rootes Memorial Fund was endowed in memory of Baron Rootes to benefit students at the University of Warwick. Students must first submit a proposal for a research project showing both imagination and innovation. Successful proposal writers are then invited to a panel interview with the academics which compose the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund Committee. This committee then advises the trustees on which projects to fund. Awards range between £100 and £3000. Following completion of their project, students are expected to produce a report of publishable standard to justify the sponsorship they have received. This is then made available to the public through the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick in Coventry. The final 20% of the research grant is only released on receipt of a satisfactory report.
In 2013, the following projects were funded by the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund:
The Whissile: Designing and Building a Small Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engine by James Christen, Robert Sandford, James Edmondson and Adam Lack
The Antarctic Peninsular Expedition by Jamie Goodhart
Don Juan: The Life of a Spanish Oidor in Colombia by Emilia Halton-Hernandez
Drawing Back the Iron Curtain: Memory and Legacy from Szczecin to Trieste by Sam Jenkins
The House Beautiful - A Play for Edinburgh 2013 by David Levesley
Exploring Europe's supposed North-South Divide along the "Dream Path" from Munich to Venice by Tobias Pforr
Lourdes, the Pyrenees and the Camino de Santiago - An Exploration of the Meaning of a Pilgrimage in the 21st Century by Krzysztof Siczek
Coloured Cuisine: Origins and Influences by Aiesha Sriram
An Expedition to Yangshuo, China by Elliot Walker
Following the Steps of Pheidippides. A Journey to Sparta in Search of the Reasons People Run Marathons and Beyond by Louis Waterman-Evans
