Warwick Open Research Awards - Sofia Fernandes
The funding we received from the ‘Digital Spotlight’ was used to launch the University of Warwick ‘Open Research Awards’ in 2025. These awards were celebrated as a centrepiece of the first ever Warwick Open Research Symposium.
The awards were proposed as a way of recognising and celebrating the exceptional projects and practices, from both Warwick Staff and Students, that embody the principles of open, transparent, and collaborative research across disciplines. Applications were sought from across the institution and awarded in four categories, one for each University Faculty and an Interdisciplinary category. Applicants were assessed against four criteria:
- Openness, accessibility and reusability
- Application of open and digital research techniques
- Collaboration, inclusivity and knowledge exchange
- Impact and innovation in open and digital research
These criteria were designed to reflect the aims of the open research work led by the Library and Archives Service as well as the Spotlight who had funded the initiative. The applications were reviewed by members of the University’s Open Research Group, a sub-group of the main University Research Committee.
The awards received 21 applications from staff and students and the quality of submissions was truly impressive. These awards recognise exceptional projects and practices that embody the principles of open, transparent, and collaborative research across disciplines and the winners demonstrated outstanding commitment to advancing open research through innovative, inclusive, and impactful approaches.
For the three Faculty categories, we awarded a first prize of £300 and a second prize of £150. In the interdisciplinary categories, due to the quality of the applications and the tight scoring, we were able to award two first prizes and two second prizes. The winners were invited to the first Warwick Open Research Symposium, July 2025, to receive their certificates and give a short presentation on their projects. These presentations will be turned into short videos this academic year to promote the 2026 awards and showcase the vibrant culture of open research at Warwick.
The principle of the awards was to promote both disciplinary and interdisciplinary practices in open research and to encourage, particularly, early career researchers to consider the use of open research practice as a way to engage with their research in a more innovative fashion.
We have advertised the awards on the Library website and have a range of photos of the award winners from the Symposium: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/research-support/researcher-training/events/warwick-open-research-awards/