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18 May 2022

SSPP celebrates impactful research across the faculty

The Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy recently held its first Impact Awards to recognise and celebrate activity that has had a positive impact on society.

SSPP impact awards 2022 winners
People’s Choice Award winners (from left to right) Ximena Soto Soutullo, of the Department of International Development, and Dr Tiffany Fairey, of the Department of War Studies. © Lyanne Wylde 2022.

The inaugural SSPP Impact Awards saw academics, researchers and professional service staff from across the faculty come together at The Exchange in Bush House to celebrate projects that are making a difference to the world.

A total of 43 applications were received from across the faculty for the awards and six winners were chosen by a shortlisting panel made up of Department Impact Leads and the Associate Deans (Impact & Innovation). Each winner will receive funding of £2,000 and expert mentoring to support them to further their research impact. Four highly-commended PhD students were also selected and each will be given £500 to continue to build their research impact.

At the SSPP Impact Awards event on 11 May, award winners also had the opportunity to present an overview of their activity, followed by comment by an expert panel and questions from the audience.

The 60 attendees then chose their favourite for the 'People’s Choice Award', which was shared jointly between Dr Tiffany Fairey, of the Department of War Studies, and Ximena Soto Soutullo, of the Department of International Development. Each will be given an additional £1000 to further their impact.

Well done to all our winners. We have so much exciting research taking place within our faculty and it was wonderful to be able to showcase some of the most impactful work at these awards. We look forward to seeing how all these projects progress in the months ahead and continue to bring benefits to the wider world.

Professor Cathy McIlwaine, Vice Dean (Research), SSPP

Many congratulations to our worthy winners. The expert panel was extremely impressed with the breadth and quality of research impact demonstrated by these projects, and I am delighted that we had this opportunity to celebrate the many ways that the research in our faculty is making a positive difference in the world.

Dr Julia Pearce, Associate Dean (Impact & Innovation), SSPP

The full list of winning projects is:

  • Dr Tiffany Fairey, Department of War Studies: Everyday Peace Photography: Using Photography to support community peace-building and amplify community voices
  • Dr Alan Wager and Joël Reland, UK in a Changing Europe: UK in a Changing Europe
  • Ximena Soto Soutullo, Department of International Development: Building Capacities - When Money is Necessary but Not Sufficient: Institutional Capabilities from a Service Design Perspective - The Case of Covid-19 Early Vaccination Process in Chile
  • Dr Abdulkarim Ekzayez and Nassim El Achi, R4HSSS Team, School of Security Studies: Research for Health Systems Strengthening in northern Syria
  • Professor Gabriella Rundblad and Dr Chris Tang, CoronAwareness Team, School of Education, Communication & Society: CoronAwareness: Preventing COVID-related illness in minority communities with a strong oral language tradition
  • Dr James Angel, Department of Geography: Co-designing evaluative research on a UK smart energy trial

The four highly-commended projects were:

  • Randa Kachef, Department of Geography: Structural Design as an Environmental Enhancement Technique: The case of littering seagulls
  • Sally King, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine: Disentangling gender and racial myths from the diagnosis of PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) and female prevalent symptoms and conditions more widely
  • Christos Sagredos, School of Education, Communication & Society: A small stories approach to sex workers' identity constructions in digital environments
  • Dylan Aplin, Department of War Studies: Influencing policy and changing practice for the counter-terrorism training of workers in UK crowded places

The expert panel was made up of:

  • Louise Atkins, Head of Impact and Knowledge Exchange, University of Cambridge
  • Stephen Roberts, Research Engagement Manager, Research Strategy & Development, KCL
  • Briony Turner, Programme Manager, WCRP Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) International Project Office, European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications
  • Natalie Wall, Impact Lead (Social Sciences), Research Performance, KCL

In this story

Tiffany Fairey

Research Fellow

Chris Tang

Lecturer in International Education & Applied Linguistics

Alan Wager

Research Associate

Abdulkarim Ekzayez

Senior Research Associate

Randa Kachef

Research Affiliate

Sally King

Visiting Fellow

Christos Sagredos

PhD candidate

Cathy McIlwaine

Vice Dean (Research), Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy

Julia Pearce

Reader in Social Psychology & Security Studies