This award celebrates individuals or teams who have enhanced research culture at Warwick within the past three years. Through funded projects or organic initiatives, they have fostered an inclusive research culture, supporting members of our research community including academics, PGRs, technicians, research enablers, and research partners to thrive.

This award seeks to celebrate individuals and/or teams who have contributed to positive change in areas including, but not limited to:

• EDI;
• Well-being in the research community;
• Addressing bullying/harassment;
• Recruitment, retention and career development/pathways;
• Research training;
• Research leadership;
• Technician or Research Support empowerment;
• Research integrity;
• Open research and reproducibility.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

 Nominations will be evaluated/assessed on the following criteria:

1. Outcome: What was the activity’s purpose and how were its aims and objectives met? (Including benefits to research users and any additional outcomes).
2. Co-design: How strongly did the activity adopt a co-design approach, involving and engaging research end users? 
3. Evaluation: How did the activity respond to an evidence gap, specifically related to mitigating a research culture challenge. How was positive change evidenced?
4. Opportunities for replication or expansion: Has the initiative been shared, replicated or expanded within the department/Faculty, University or at a sector level?
5. Category specific criterion: How does the activity contribute to Warwick’s Research Culture Strategy of creating an inclusive research environment where researchers and research enablers can feel Happy, Creative and Productive, and where the research itself is Open and Sound?

This category seeks to celebrate individuals and/or teams who have made significant contributions to achieving Research Impact at Warwick. Research Impact for this purpose is defined as an effect on, change or benefit to society, health, culture, the economy, public policy or services, the environment or quality of life, at regional, national, and international scales, beyond academia. The impact must be based on research undertaken at Warwick, with the impact ongoing or achieved within the past five years.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

Nominations will be evaluated/assessed on the following criteria: 

1. Significance of the Impact: how significant has the impact been for those that it affects (directly or indirectly, e.g., in terms of economic impact, environmental impact, quality of life etc)?
2. Reach of the Impact: how far, in terms of stakeholders affected, the impact has reached? Reach could extend across multiple, diverse communities, organisations or sectors and/or numerous countries OR it could affect a specific public but with impact on this entire community.
3. Innovative and Inclusive Methods: how innovative and/or inclusive were the methods used to achieve impact, in areas such as, but not limited to, partnership working, collaboration and inclusion of research users in research design and/or development and/or application, citizen science, participatory research, and meaningful public engagement.

This category seeks to celebrate individuals and/or teams who have developed lasting and successful academic and/or non-academic external collaborations or partnerships at regional, national or international levels and which deliver research excellence or impact. These external engagements may have led to research innovations, practical application of novel research, development of novel solutions to complex problems, new ways of working e.g. services, processes and policies, or other academic or non-academic impacts.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

Nominations will be evaluated/assessed on the following criteria: 

1. Purpose: Defined aims and objectives of the engagement.
2. Creativity and Innovation: Extent to which diverse perspectives and expertise are brought together, including creative engagement or use of resources. What significant advancements in a particular field or area have been achieved?
3. Outcome: How successful the engagement has been, what impact has been generated and who are the beneficiaries, to what extent have critical needs been addressed, how have those involved in the collaboration/partnership benefited, has it led to interdisciplinary working?
4. Opportunities: Extent to which activities have leveraged internal and/or external funding, and/or extended collaborative networks.
5. Sustainability: The sustainability of the partnership and depth of co-ownership/co-development of the collaboration.

This award celebrates individuals and/or teams who have communicated their research through any type of media, whether that is research communications, stories or other forms of publicity, with creative, inspiring and engaging ways of communicating research activity, that have enhanced understanding and trust in research.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

1. Outcome: What was the activity’s purpose and how were its aims and objectives met? (Including audience, benefit and any additional outcomes). 
2. Creativity and Innovation: How novel and creative is/was the activity, whether in method/approach, or in communication/outcome? 
3. Evaluation: How well planned and managed have the activities been? 
4. Opportunities for replication or expansion: Has the initiative been replicated or expanded within the department, centre, Faculty or University?
5. Category specific criterion: How broad is/was the scope and ambition of the engagement activity and how has it achieved a greater understanding of the research by communities?

This category recognises individuals and/or teams in professional services and technical roles who have made a significant contribution to research and/or impact at Warwick over the past year. Nominees might include research support staff, technicians, and research project managers, but staff in any non-academic roles may be nominated.

Colleagues in technical and research support roles are a vital part of our diverse research community, but their contributions are often less visible. This award celebrates contributions that enable the excellence of Warwick’s research and impact and recognises the wide range of job roles that are key to our research environment and culture.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

Nominations will be evaluated/assessed on the following criteria:

1. Impact of the support: the contribution of the research enabler to making the research activity happen.
2. Excellent communication: with researchers and/or research teams, accessibility and responses to questions and problems raised.
3. Outstanding expertise and knowledge in the enabling area.
4. Inspiration and support for the University of Warwick’s research community.
5. The research and impact achievements arising as a result of the enabling activity.

This category seeks to celebrate individuals and/or teams who have made significant contributions to the excellent supervision of PhD students at Warwick. This includes contributions to wellbeing, academic progress, and career development of students whom they are supervising on research projects.

Excellent supervisors provide high-level training together with their research teams, inspire their students in achieving their research goals, and mentor them to support their next steps and future careers. Excellent supervision may also include providing notable support where students are facing challenges due to personal circumstances or difficulties with their research.

General Evaluation/Assessment criteria

Nominations will be evaluated/assessed on the following criteria:

1. A commitment of time and energy for the support of students, where needed, alongside the balance of other demands.
2. Good communication with students, accessibility and responses to questions and problems raised.
3. Outstanding expertise and knowledge and a method to transfer those to students.
4. Inspiration and support for students’ personal and professional development, and direction of future career.
5. The academic and/or personal achievements of students accomplished by the excellence of supervision.