Winners of Impact Awards 2015 announced

Submitted by office on Fri, 09/18/2015 - 08:55

Winners of Impact Awards 2015 announced

 

The winners of the Impact Awards for knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) professionals, run by Research Councils UK (RCUK) and PraxisUnico, were announced at a ceremony in Central Hall, Westminster, on 15th September, bringing together more than 200 invited guests from academia, industry and government.  

The Impact Awards recognise and celebrate the vital role knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) professionals play in maximising impact from research.

 

The winners of the three awards are:

  • Contribution to Business: University of Leicester - ASDEC (Advanced Structural Dynamics Evaluation Centre)
  • Contribution to Society: Public Health England - Knowledge exchange on the frontline - responding to the Ebola outbreak
  • Outstanding KEC Initiative: Lancaster University with the University of Liverpool and Inventya Ltd - Centre for Global Eco-Innovation

 

The Overall Winner 2015, drawn from the winners of the three awards, was the University of Leicester. They will receive up to £50,000 award money to be used to invest in enhancing their KEC activities.

A strong and diverse range of projects were nominated for the awards, showcasing how UK KEC teams work with their academic colleagues to help turn investments in research into real-life benefits. This includes supporting relationships between businesses and world-leading UK researchers.

The Rt Hon Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science, said: “I would like to congratulate the winners of the RCUK/PraxisUnico Impact Awards. They, and all of the finalists, should all be immensely proud of their achievements. It is great to see so many innovative approaches to knowledge exchange and commercialisation, enabling UK research in deliver impact to businesses and society. This work is vital in ensuring that the UK remains competitive, innovative, and able to sustain development and economic growth. ”

Anjuu Trevedi, the lead Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation Professional for the University of Leicester’s shortlisted project, said: “We are incredibly proud and delighted to be named the Overall Winner at the Impact Awards, which acknowledges our success in developing ASDEC, a globally unique facility that offers commercial structural dynamics consultancy and research to industry using 3D laser vibrometry. These Awards are a fantastic way for KEC teams within the sector to be recognised for their expertise, hard work and the value they bring to the sector to help deliver competitive advantage to the companies collaborating with the respective universities. We would like to thank everyone at the University of Leicester, our funders and the companies involved with ASDEC for their invaluable support in making this all possible.”

Seshadri Vasan, Senior Business Development Manager at Public Health England said: “We are delighted to have been selected as the winner under 'contribution to society' from a list of equally deserving projects. This recognition is a tribute not only to the activities of the Business Development team but the wider work of Public Health England during the international response to Ebola. We are honoured that our work has been recognised by the UK Research Councils and our professional body PraxisUnico, alongside the range of other awards won by our colleagues across PHE. We believe that our robust, prompt and fair way of exchanging knowledge with industry, academia and other public bodies, greatly enhanced the effectiveness of the UK response.”

Dion Williams, Director of Research and Enterprise at Lancaster University, said: “We are incredibly proud to win this award. It represents 150 years of collaborative research between Lancaster and the University of Liverpool, and a collective effort from 290 SMEs, 80 academics and 50 graduate researchers, supported by our private sector partner Inventya. It is fantastic for KEC teams up and down the country to be recognised for the value we add to the sector through the Impact Awards and we are really pleased to be a part of this.”

These projects demonstrate best practice and outstanding impact from KEC professionals work, removing barriers to business engagement, and establishing strong relationships facilitated by the KEC teams to drive work towards a shared goal.

 

For further information, please contact:

 

Amy Firth: info@impactawards.org.uk | 01223 659950

Katie Clark: katie.clark@rcuk.ac.uk | 01793 444387

 

Notes for editors:

1.       Photographs of the winners receiving their trophies are attached/link to Dropbox.

2.       Details of finalists and their projects is available at: www.impactawards.org.uk/finalists.htm

3.       About the Impact Awards: PraxisUnico and the Research Councils (under RCUK) are working together to facilitate the sharing of best practice, and to acknowledge and celebrate the work that Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation (KEC) professionals do in enabling impact from UK research organisations.

The Impact Awards for KEC professionals:

·         recognises the important contribution made by KEC professionals working with researchers in turning excellent research into impact

·         enables the sharing of best practice in KEC amongst the varied community served by the Research Councils and PraxisUnico

·         stimulates innovative approaches to KEC activities in UK research organisations and beyond.

The competition replaces the PraxisUnico Impact Awards and the BBSRC Activating Impact competition

4.       PraxisUnico is the UK's leading professional association for knowledge exchange and commercialisation (KEC) practitioners. It provides a voice for the sector and facilitates interactions between public sector research, business and government. PraxisUnico delivers continuing professional development programmes, tools and services around the world, promoting best practice knowledge transfer. In the past 10 years it has trained over 3,300 practitioners from over 40 countries. Find out more at www.praxisunico.org.u

5.       Research Councils UK (RCUK) is the strategic partnership of the UK’s seven Research Councils. Our collective ambition is to ensure the UK remains the best place in the world to do research, innovate and grow business. The Research Councils are central to delivering research and innovation for economic growth and societal impact. Together, we invest £3 billion in research each year, covering all disciplines and sectors, to meet tomorrow’s challenges today. Our investments create new knowledge through: funding research excellence; responding to society’s challenges; developing skills, leadership and infrastructure; and leading the UK’s research direction. We drive innovation through: creating environments and brokering partnerships; co-delivering research and innovation with over 2,500 businesses, 1,000 of which are SMEs; and providing intelligence for policy making. Find out more about our work at www.rcuk.ac.uk.

 

The seven UK Research Councils are:

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