Dr Karen Simecek has won the Award for Excellence in Impact with a Third Sector Organisation at the Social Science Impact Celebration event that took placed on 27 March 2023. This was in recognition of her ongoing work with national charity Poet in the City.

Dr Simecek's research has achieved transformational impact on national charity, Poet in the City’s work with communities by embedding an ethical framework (in the form of a poetic manifesto) into the development and launch of their Newcastle Poetry Exchange Hub. This has provided Poet in the City with a model that will shape the development of future Poetry Exchange Hubs up and down the country. Katie Matthews (interim CEO, Poet in the City) commented: “The poetic manifesto has become an important, practical tool in developing and delivering PinC projects, highlighting key principles and considerations when writing poetry with and for different communities. Used alongside our Theory of Change, the manifesto helps to ensure we genuinely centre the voices of the communities we work with and capture their stories authentically and sensitively.”