Research Impact and Engagement Awards

The Research Impact and Engagement Awards 2024 recognise and celebrate researchers who engage with the wider world through their research to achieve impact.

Building on the highly successful Engaged for Impact Awards 2022, this year’s awards will showcase and celebrate examples of impact and engagement from across the institution.

The inaugural awards were designed to celebrate the long and sometimes rocky road of engagement, as well as the resulting impact. This year, the awards will take a similar approach. The awards have six categories, and in each category, we will recognise two projects: one that achieved impact and one that uses effective engagement as a pathway to impact.

Aims of the Engagement and Impact awards

Key Objectives

Recognise teams and individuals who are committed to engagement for research impact.
Promote and share innovative and high-quality approaches to achieving research impact.
Highlight great examples of engagement and research impact.

Welcoming all genres of research engagement

Partnerships, collaboration and teamwork are an essential part of the road to impact and the awards aim to shine a light on all those involved in contributing to success, whatever their role. Equity, diversity and inclusion in research is integral to the way we work at Leeds and is expected to cut across all categories. This might include improving inclusion of underrepresented researchers in engagement practices, or empowering others in the wider community and society, for example.

Research impact is achieved through many different forms of engagement – benefits can be achieved by influencing policy or practice, developing new technologies or building the public’s capacity to engage with and benefit from research. We value all pathways to impact equally.

Prize

Winners will be announced and celebrated at an awards ceremony on 20 November 2024 and will be the focus of a series of commissioned assets, promoted nationally across all University media channels.

Research Impact and Engagement Award Categories

Awards will be made across six areas: Cultural, Economic, Environmental, Health, Policy and Societal impact. Two awards will be made in each category, one for emerging impact, the other for mature impact.

Each of the award categories below gives some examples of the engagement or impact we would expect to see in each area. These examples are not exhaustive, and we welcome applications that are outside of these examples where they fit with the overall award title.

Apply for the 2024 awards

Submit your nominations

Nominations and applications for the Research Impact and Engagement Awards are now open.

The application window will close on Wednesday 31 July 2024 and successfully shortlisted applicants will receive ceremony invitations in September.

To apply, colleagues should visit the 'Research Impact and Engagement Awards' staff intranet.

Important information

Colleagues can access find application guidance and information regarding the eligibility criteria and selection process on the 'Research Impact and Engagement Awards' staff intranet.

Any questions about the awards or applications should be directed to the Knowledge Exchange team at knowledge-exchange@leeds.ac.uk