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The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is delighted to announce the winners of its 2015 photographic competition ‘Changing World’.

The winners received a prize of £100 each at a special awards ceremony tonight (10 March) at the Menier Gallery in London.

The winning photographs will be displayed alongside a selection of the best entries at an exhibition in the Menier from the 10-14 March 2015.

This year, as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, the ESRC asked children aged 14 to 18 to think about how the world has changed over the last 50 years, and imagine how it may continue to change in the future. The challenge was to capture an essence of this change in a single photograph. The quality of the entries was outstanding, with over 1,600 entries from 270 schools.

There are six winners across categories exploring issues including family, technology and media. Five additional winners will pick up a Judge’s Favourite award. The overall winner of the competition, and winner of the environment category, is 16-year-old Rachel Coleman from Bishop Stopford School in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Her photograph, of the view from a train window in Iceland, was named ‘Through the looking glass’ after the Lewis Carroll novel.

“There's something about wonderland that has always intrigued me,” Rachel says. “Despite the fact that the world is changing beyond the rabbit hole - and the looking glass - wonderland stays exactly the same. That's how I feel about Iceland. It's my wonderland.”

Other winners included Josh (17) from Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury, Wiltshire for his photo ‘Height,’ a dramatic action shot of a BMX rider performing a stunt, and 18-year-old Jennifer Riley from the North Halifax Grammar School in West Yorkshire, who won for her image ‘The living room.’ Her picture shows a modern family isolated from one another by the intrusion of technology into the home. Jennifer says “technology attempts to bring us together but we often prefer to spend our time existing in our virtual world as opposed to living in the real world. The living room is now a slightly ironic name for a room in which people are often only there in body.”

Nadia Rouhipour, aged sixteen, from the Torquay Girls Grammar School in Devon won the Community and Friends category for her photograph ‘Is anonymity so bad?’ It shows two best friends reuniting after a long time apart. The image is taken from behind obscured glass, letting the friends enjoy their anonymity and privacy.

Watch our video of the winning entries.

The winners were picked from over 1,600 images seen by judges Sophie Battersbury, Head of Pictures at the Independent; Ollie Smallwood, a freelance photographer; Professor Jane Elliott, Chief Executive of the ESRC; Jacky Clake, Head of Communications at the ESRC; and Susie Watts, Deputy Head of Communications at the ESRC. As well as deciding the winners for each of the six categories, each of the judges also picked their own personal favourite photographs.

Professor Elliott said yesterday:

“I was delighted by the very high quality of the photographs for this year’s competition. As the ESRC celebrates 50 years of helping us understand society, these photographs all offer astute observations about the world we live in today, and make us consider how things may change over the coming years. To be able to capture in a still image the intricacies and complexities of today’s society and how it has changed is a remarkable gift – congratulations to all the winners.”

Further information

• Sarah Nichols 
  Email: sarah.nichols@esrc.ac.uk
  Telephone: 01793 413049

Notes for editors

• The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK’s largest funder of research on the social and economic questions facing us today. It supports the development and training of the UK’s future social scientists and also funds major studies that provide the infrastructure for research. ESRC-funded research informs policymakers and practitioners and helps make businesses, voluntary bodies and other organisations more effective. The ESRC also works collaboratively with six other UK research councils and Innovate UK to fund cross-disciplinary research and innovation addressing major societal challenges. The ESRC is an independent organisation, established by Royal Charter in 1965, and funded mainly by the Government. In 2015 it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The full list of competition winners are:

Category winners

• Rachel Coleman, Bishop Stopford School, Kettering - Overall competition winner and Environment
• Jennifer Riley , The North Halifax Grammar School, Halifax – Family
• Nadia Rouhipour, Torquay Girl’s Grammar School, Torquay  – Community and Friends
• Josh Cooper, Bishop Wordsworth’s School, Salisbury - Interests and Hobbies
• Greta Gillham Wright – Simon Langton Girl’s Grammar School, Canterbury - Opinions and Beliefs
• Henry Vincent – Twyford C of E School, Middlesex -Technology and Media

Judges’ Favourites

• Ross Young – James Hamilton Academy, Kilmarnock - chosen by Sophie Batterbury
• Jack Rogers – Eton College – Windsor - chosen by Jane Elliott
• Jack Roden – Lanark Grammar School, Lanark - chosen by Jacky Clake
• Stella Wharmby – Francis Holland School, London - chosen by Susie Watts
• Jodie Krause – Surbiton High School - chosen by Ollie Smallwood