The Daily Mail, Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and City University have launched a scheme to help two students from under-represented groups break into journalism.

It is aimed at those from ethnic minorities and poor backgrounds.

The Stephen Lawrence Daily Mail Scholarship will cover post-graduate tuition fees as well as living expenses. Recipients will have access to work experience at the Daily Mail, mentorship from Daily Mail Journalists and will join the Daily Mail or Mail Online graduate trainee scheme at the end of their course on a 12-month paid contract.

The move is part of a ten-year strategy by the Department of Journalism at City to increase the number of students from “black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds or lower income households”.

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre (pictured) said: “We share with Stephen’s family the wish that more hardworking students from disadvantaged backgrounds should also look to journalism as a career – just as Stephen aspired to become an architect before his life was so viciously cut short.

“We are delighted that we have been able to provide a substantial investment for these bursaries and bring them into our training scheme.”

Following the successful launch of the bursary in 2015 two successful applicants are now working full-time in the Daily Mail newsroom.

The students chosen to receive the first scholarships in 2015 were Victoria Ibitoye, 23, who is now working on the paper’s City and Finance section and Alexander Holmes, 25, who is working as a showbusiness reporter.