A new £25,000 scholarship to improve care for people with motor neurone disease (MND) will be set up in memory of campaigner Gordon Aikman.
Health Secretary Shona Robison announced the scholarship at Holyrood and said she hoped it would continue the pioneering work of the 31-year-old, who died earlier this month.
After being diagnosed with the terminal degenerative disease in 2014 aged 29 while working for the Better Together campaign, Mr Aikman formed the Gordon's Fightback campaign and raised more than £500,000 for research to find a cure.
He also successfully lobbied the First Minister to double the number of MND nurses and secured a change in the law so people at risk of losing their voice as a result of a medical condition can access voice equipment on the NHS.
During a Scottish Parliament debate celebrating Mr Aikman's life and campaign, Ms Robison said: "Gordon valued the relationships he formed with all of those involved in his care including professionals and was constantly striving to seek out those treatments and approaches that would improve the quality of his own and other people's lives.
"That's why I'm delighted to announced today that I've established a scholarship programme in honour of Gordon.
"The Gordon Aikman Scholarship will fund professionals or individuals with knowledge of MND to take forward research into new and better ways of caring for people with the condition."
She added: "I very much hope it will continue to drive forward the improvements in MND care that Gordon had kick-started in Scotland and will be a fitting tribute to his memory."
The Health Secretary also revealed plans for a research event on how to bring MND clinical trials to Scotland.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, a close friend of Mr Aikman, told parliament she would concentrate on his achievements and further work, highlighting his efforts meant the waiting time for MND patients to be fitted with a feeding tube in NHS Lothian had dropped from 22 weeks to two.
She urged the Scottish Government to improve the NHS IT system to help carry on Mr Aikman's work as the current set-up could mean an MND patient's wish to die at home was overlooked due to system incompatibility.
Mr Aikman's husband Joe Pike watched the debate in chamber with family and friends and said: "We are delighted that this scholarship will continue Gordon's legacy.
"We must also work hard to make Scotland an international centre for clinical trials into MND.
"It is vital we find a cure for the disease that robbed Gordon of his future and continues to affect hundreds of families across the country."
MND Scotland chairman and close friend of Mr Aikman Lawrence Cowan said: "Gordon's campaigning transformed MND care in Scotland.
"With this scholarship we can help inspire people to keep transforming MND care for years to come.
"It will help bring people together, try new things and ultimately improve how we fight back against this cruel disease."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here