ESRC announces winners of its 2022 Celebrating Impact Prize

4 Nov 2022 12:38 PM

Researchers whose work has made an outstanding difference to society and the economy were celebrated at the ESRC’s annual Celebrating Impact Prize awards.

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The Celebrating Impact Prize awards is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Sciences. The event was live streamed from the Royal Society in London on 2 November.

The competition, now in its tenth year, recognises and rewards ESRC-funded researchers who have achieved impact through exceptional research, knowledge exchange activities, collaborative partnerships and engagement with different communities.

John Hills Impact Prize 2022

This year, ESRC created the John Hills Impact Prize 2022 as a special award category in honour of the late Professor Sir John Hills. He was funded by ESRC over the course of his long and illustrious career.

Professor Hills is remembered across the community for his leadership and his contribution to social policy, particularly in relation to poverty and equality.

The John Hills Impact Prize 2022 will recognise a social scientist:

Promoting economic and social impact

Each winner was awarded a prize of £10,000 to be spent on furthering knowledge exchange, public engagement, or other communications activities to promote the economic and social impact of their research.

The ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize awards ceremony 2022 was held during the 20th ESRC Festival of Social Science. This is a UK wide series of events to promote and increase awareness of the contribution social science makes to the wellbeing and the economy of society in the UK.

Making a genuine difference

ESRC’s interim Executive Chair, Professor Alison Park CBE, said:

The Celebrating Impact Prize has been a flagship event for the Economic and Social Research Council for the past decade.

Over this time, we’ve celebrated many excellent examples of the important role the social sciences play in helping understand and tackle key economic and social challenges, with awards to over 60 outstanding researchers and research teams.

This year’s Impact Prize finalists, and especially the winners, exemplify the insight and support that social science research can produce, helping make a genuine difference at the local, national and international level.

Examples include tackling the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on society, addressing inequality in higher education in different parts of the world, building impactful environmental initiatives and supporting women in the aviation industry.

I was also honoured to mark this year with a special prize, the John Hills Impact Prize 2022, in memory of the late Professor Sir John Hills. Throughout his research career, Sir John demonstrated how social science research can drive positive change.

We are supporting this legacy by awarding a prize in his name to a researcher who, like Sir John, has demonstrated significant impact over a sustained length of time.

I want to congratulate our winners and finalists of this year’s impact prize.

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