OPPOSITE extremes of temperature await two travellers who have been awarded research grants.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship Awards were announced last week and include the two men from Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Dr Andrew Eccleston, from Lower Howsell Road, Malvern, and Mark July, from Woolhope, face very different challenges.

Dr Eccleston, a freelance interim manager and IT consultant is heading for Iceland later this year, where he will spend a month studying the effects of internet technologies in an isolated community.

"I realised that although I have travelled quite extensively, I've never spent a lengthy time in another country where the main objective was to experience another culture and learn," he said.

"There are very isolated communities within Iceland for which internet technology appears to have become an important asset."

Dr Eccleston, a volunteer for Community Action in Malvern, said the trip had both personal and business angles and that he was interested to see if the internet could be used to advance the level of service provided by the group. He is running a website detailing the project at www.iceland2001. freeserve.co.uk

Mr July, a nature conservationist for English Nature, is travelling to the USA and Mexico at the beginning of 2002 to learn about ecological management techniques. He will be working with US and Mexican ecologists on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border, as part of the Rio Grande Ecosystem Restoration project. It aims to restore soils, forest and vegetation to the area and create a new habitat corridor for wildlife on the Rio Grande flood plain.

"It's very innovative and different work," said Mr July, who hopes to use the techniques he learns on the River Severn when he returns. "Their processes will give me some real insights and ideas that we can apply at home."