Celebrating successes

Published: 14 December 2020

Recognition and awards for our colleagues

Guardian Staff Experience award

We have won the Staff Experience award at the Guardian University Awards 2020. Team UofG was praised for its efforts in promoting a positive research culture with our project Reimagining our Research Culture: Helping Each Other to Succeed. This addressed issues in the research community and resulted in an action plan covering the following five themes,

  • creating an environment in which colleagues support each other to succeed
  • improving career development
  • introducing fair approaches to evaluating research quality and recognising different contributions to research
  • making research methods and findings openly available
  • supporting high standards of academic rigour.

Social Policy award

Our undergraduate Social & Public Policy teaching team has won the Social Policy Association’s Policy Press Outstanding Teaching Award 2020. This is a competitive UK-wide teaching award that is open to all UK higher education institutions and is awarded by the Social Policy Association, the leading professional association for social policy across the UK.

The team, led by Dr Mark Wong, has demonstrated excellence in pedagogical practices, such as promoting active learning and supporting students to develop critical reflection and policy changes to address real-world challenges in local and international contexts.

"I feel incredibly proud and honoured to represent our UG teaching team to receive this prestigious award," says Dr Wong. "It truly is a celebration of the excellence we have achieved across the board, from active learning pedagogy, to developing cutting-edge technology, to improving the student experience."

StandAlone Pledge award

The University has won the 2020 StandAlone Pledge Award for our work supporting estranged students. We have worked in partnership with StandAlone since 2016, developing our provision for students who are estranged and studying without the support of a family network. 

Students Samantha Macrae and Blair Anderson each won a StandAlone Student Voice Award at the ceremony for campaigning and raising awareness.

“The award really does mean a lot, particularly in this difficult year," says Dr Dan Keenan from the Widening Participation team, "and we are so pleased to have been honoured alongside our students, Sam and Blair, who have made such an incredible contribution. StandAlone have made a remarkable difference in a relatively short period of time, and we are delighted to play our part in this. We look forward to more successful partnership work going forward.”


First published: 14 December 2020