ASPIRING journalists could following footsteps of award-winning correspondents under plans to bring the acclaimed International Multimedia Journalism Master's Degree to Bolton.

The University of Bolton is offering two scholarships to study the course in Beijing, where it is only currently being run, in September.

Applications are now being considered to find the two most promising applicants for the two full tuition scholarships with the successful candidates being announced in the coming days.

Now the university has unveiled plans to run the course on the main Bolton campus and also in South China.

Course leader, Sharron Lovell said: "The International Multimedia Journalism Masters is a dynamic course. Every year we see graduates enter diverse fields of journalism, filmmaking, editing and storytelling in both the journalism and non-profit sectors.

"It's wonderful that we can offer two scholarships this year.'"

Dr Dave Clark, who led the course from when it was first established, added: "We are proud of our graduates and the work they go on to create after leaving us.

"Many are already journalists who come to us to take their experience to the next level, going on with the skills to work internationally and innovatively across platforms."

Multimedia journalist Tracey Shelton is one of the best known of the course alumni; in 2013 winning the prestigious George Polk Award for Video Reporting for her Inside Syria series published by GlobalPost. Presented by Long Island University, New York, the George Polk Awards reward outstanding and courageous investigative journalism.

She films, edits and produces all her own stories, often from within a conflict zone. Ms Shelton also received a Pictures of the Year International Award of Excellence in the Feature Multimedia category for her piece One Hospital’s Story, which reported on the struggles of a Syrian hospital, woefully short of staff and equipment, behind rebel lines in the country’s largest city Aleppo.

A spokesman said: "Bolton also has plans to offer The International Multimedia Journalism Masters on two more sites, one in south China and also on the University of Bolton main campus, so watch this space."

The University of Bolton has an international presence other than in China, with a Academic Centre in Ras al Khaimah (RAK) in the United Arab Emirates.

The campus, which is just 45 minutes away from Dubai, offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses and the modules are directly equivalent to those provided for students at Bolton.

It also offers courses in business management in Sri Lanka, validates degree level programmes in Malaysia and also has a presence in Greece, Malawi and Singapore.

To find out more about the masters courses in China go to www.immj-ma.org http://www.immj-ma.org and follow the courses’ podcast at multimediaweek.net with the most influential people in the field of multimedia journalism, talking about their experiences and suggestions to people getting into the profession.