HE is the handsome Highland warrior who helped a generation of American women fall in love with Scotland.

Now Outlander star Sam Heughan’s army of female fans are teaming up to support his prestigious drama school, and help young performers follow in their hero’s footsteps.

A group of women from across the US, most of whom have never been to Scotland, have teamed up to create a new scholarship at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) and are hoping to donate £36,000 for aspiring artists to train there.

The Supernova Legacy Scholarship has raised more than £5000 in less than a week of their online campaign, and the organisers said they want to use their love for the epic Scots TV drama to help as many students as possible at the Glasgow school where Heughan trained.

Based all in different corners of the USA, scholarship founders Lisa Shaw, Susie Reynolds, Sandra Guttierez, Nicole Johnson, Bridget Dinehart and Megan Caughern, have been raising money via donations, raffles and merchandise sales, and are delighted with the reaction from the Outlander fanbase.

Shaw said: “We are all huge Outlander fans and fans of Sam as an actor. He wouldn’t be where he is today without the RCS, so this seemed like a really great opportunity for us to pay it forward to a student.

“Sam’s representatives are aware of it and the RCS has been involved from the get go. We want to leave the scholarship in their hands and they will treat this like their other scholarships.”