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The ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Provost's Public Engagement Awards celebrated staff, students and community partners atÌýthe university's dazzling ceremony in June 2018.Ìý

Seven award-winning projects illustrate ¹û¶³Ó°Ôºâ€™s distinctive approach to public engagement. Read on to find out what made these submissions stand-out and get an idea ofÌý¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's outstanding and collaborative work withÌýthe wider public.

Drumroll please...

Community Award
Athena Lamnisos & Angus MacLennan

The Eve Appeal was set up with one ambitious yet simple vision:Ìýa future where fewer women develop and more women surviveÌýgynaecological cancers.

Grown and developedÌýin parallel with its core research team the Department of Women’s Cancer at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº, The Eve Appeal is the only UK national charity raising awareness and funding research inÌýfive women-only cancers. Their workÌýtakesÌýplace in an impressive 31Ìýinstitutions across 15 countries and conductsÌýground-breaking research in risk prediction, earlyÌýdetection andÌýscreening.

The charity has not only played a crucial role in providing seed funding, core infrastructure funding and project funding, butÌýcampaignsÌýto raise awareness of women-specific cancers. Their work shares the impact ofÌý¹û¶³Ó°Ôºâ€™s activities to the wider world via multiple outlets, resulting in benefits for higher education, researchÌýand the public. The Eve Appeal has enabled the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Department of Women’s Cancer to relentlesslyÌýpursue its mission of reducing the burden of women’s cancer and to maximise the impact of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº researchÌýon society.

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Early Career Researcher Award
Andrea Rigon

Andrea co-founded the Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC) in a partnership between ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº, NjalaÌýUniversity and civil society organisations. Their aim is to achieve equitable urban development in SierraÌýLeone with a focus on the wellbeing of the residents of informal settlements.

This area of Sierra Leone is home to someÌýof the most vulnerable people in the world. SLURC givesÌýmembers of the population who wereÌýpreviously unheard a voice, to implement real change in their communities at government level. To do this, Andrea and his team brought together and trained local actors, facilitating dialogue between communities andÌýgovernment staff,ÌýNGO professionals and researchers.

To date, SLURC's activities have contributed to a national demand for urban transformation and helpedÌýshift perceptionsÌýof informal settlements. A local networkÌýof people living in run-down housing has been given the tools to implement change where it's needed most.ÌýAndrea's work continues to maximiseÌýthe opportunity for ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº staff to contribute to theÌýwellbeing of the urban poor in Sierra LeoneÌýbyÌýfacilitating further conversations betweenÌýDevelopment NGO professionals and students.

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Established Award
Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’sÌýresearch examines conflict-inducedÌýdisplacement in the Middle East.ÌýShe is currently leading four majorÌýexternally-funded research projects exploring the experiences of and responses to displacement in this region.

All Elena’s work has strong public engagement and policy components. These include the creation of onlineÌý‘communities of conversation’ - a collaboration with locally-based researchers who have themselves beenÌýaffected by conflict and displacement - and the co-creation of knowledge with national and international policymakers themselves.

Deeply committed to jointÌýlearning and engaging, Elena co-createsÌýresearch via open access platforms, leads collaborative learning initiatives and even produces multilingual policy briefings to promote social justice for refugees.ÌýElena is also the director of the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Refugee in a Moving World network which encourages theÌýuniversity to develop strategies to support communities affected by displacement, including refugee students and academics.

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Institutional Leadership Award
Extreme Citizen Science research group

ExCiteS (the Extreme Citizen Science Research) group was created in 2011 by Prof Muki Haklay, Dr JeromeÌýLewis and Dr Claire Ellul. Their work in community engagement started back in 1998, and today their work enables individuals to run their own Citizen Science research projects. The ‘Extreme’ part of the name demonstrates that these methods have bothÌýlocal and global applicability and scope.

With an interdisciplinary approach, ExCiteS aims to provide anyÌýuser, regardless of their background or literacy level, with a set of tools that can be used to collect, analyseÌýand act on information according to agreed scientific methods. With these skills and methods in place, anyone can run their own Citizen Science project to dealÌýwith issues that concern them.

The projects supported by ExCiteS range from helping indigenous groups in theÌýCongo basin to protect themselves from the threat of commercial poachers, to empoweringÌýlocal London communities to monitor air quality. We’re looking forward to seeing what they work on next.

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Professional Services Staff AwardÌý
Annabelle South

Annabelle’s extraordinary level of commitment to patients and public groups in theÌýcancer and infections research field makes her an award-winner this year.

Annabelle works with the Medical ResearchÌýCouncil (MRC) Clinical Trials Unit on a wide range of clinical trials in the UK and Africa, including treatments for cancer, HIV and tuberculosis. Responsible for a portfolio of innovative and creativeÌýapproaches to public engagement she is the friendly face of ¹û¶³Ó°ÔºÌýclinical research in what can sometimes be a daunting process for patients.

In 2016, in a partnership project with Cancer Research UK, Annabelle ran a series of roadshowsÌýaround the UK forÌýprostate cancer patients and their loved ones. The roadshows provided an important opportunity for patients and the public to speak directly to ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº clinicalÌýresearchers. Annabelle's work enables researchers to better meet the needs of patients through communication platforms, and helpsÌýto ensure that patients, their families and societyÌýknow how important aÌýcontribution to science they are making by being part of a clinical trial.

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Student Award
Nicola Antaki

Nicola Antaki's doctoral research combines interdisciplinary practices of pedagogy and design.ÌýA practising architect, she has developed an innovative teaching method entitled ‘A Learning Architecture’, enabling school children to redesign their environment.Ìý

Nicola’s research, situated in Mumbai since 2011, centres around a sustained collaboration with the same group ofÌýprimary school children in an informal settlement. Forming the central part of her doctoralÌýresearch, this project has been an ongoing co-design project bringing together architectural design and local craft to help children become activeÌýcitizens.

The project came together for an exhibition of the children’s work, curated and designed through workshops and a series of events. Significantly, due toÌýNicola’s long-term and intimate engagement with these communities and the ongoing success of her work,Ìýthe school integrated her project principles into the school curriculum and has decided to continue toÌýinclude more active design in art and craft sessions.

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Team Award
Know Your Normal - Dr Laura Crane, Fern Adams, Georgia Harper, Jack Welch and Prof Liz Pellicano

Know Your Normal is a campaign led by a team of young autistic people from the charity Ambitious aboutÌýAutism, with academics fromÌý¹û¶³Ó°Ôº. Their work focuses on supporting young autistic people to identify what’s ‘normal’ for them when it comes to their own mental health, and to empower them to seek helpÌýif/when their 'normal' changes.

¹û¶³Ó°Ôº academics Laura Crane, Senior Lecturer at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Institute of Education and Deputy Director of the Centre forÌýResearch in Autism and Education (CRAE), and Liz Pellicano, now Professor of Autism Education atÌýMacquarie University, Sydney worked in partnership with three young people from the charity - Fern Adams, Georgia Harper and Jack Welch. Together they designed the research, collected data, interpreted theÌýresults, and disseminated the findings in an accessible report.

Informed by the success of this project CRAE will embed collaborative public engagement within their long term strategy.

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Find out more
Click hereÌýtoÌýdiscover the history and achievements of the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Public Engagement Unit.