The I-SPHERE team are delighted to have been nominated for and announced as one of the winners of The Queen’s Anniversary Prize 2019.
Queen’s Anniversary Prizes are awarded once every two years in recognition of the outstanding work delivered by UK colleges and universities. Winning entries, awarded by The Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister, are required to demonstrate excellence, innovation and public benefit to the wider world. The prizes are described as the highest national honour awarded in UK further and higher education.
Professor Garry Pender, Deputy Principal for Research and Innovation at Heriot Watt University, attended a ceremony at St James’ Palace in London where the awards were announced. He said:
“The Queen’s Anniversary Prize is one of the UK’s most prestigious national awards for world leading research. It is a huge honour for all staff, students and alumni of our university and a very special accolade for I-SPHERE in particular.
“I-SPHERE’s research and innovation spans all major forms of extreme disadvantage and leads scholarship across disciplinary boundaries. It inspires innovation in social science research and develops connections while facilitating knowledge transfer around the world. This strategy is at the core of our university’s vision and is fully aligned with our mission to create and exchange knowledge that benefits society.”
Professor Glen Bramley attended the reception on behalf of I-SPHERE. He said:
“Using world-class research, our mission is to drive forward policy and legislative change to improve the lives of society’s most vulnerable. We help both governments and charities to target funds effectively and set the parameters of local and global debate on extreme disadvantage.
“We are enormously proud to have played a pivotal role in modernising homelessness legislation and have precipitated a paradigm shift to the evidenced-based Housing First model of intervention. Our path-breaking reports on Destitution in the UK, conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have opened up an entirely new research agenda in the poverty field. Our work has influenced a change in policy stance towards social housing, including the key significance of tenure security as well as highlighting how much new social housing should be built. To be recognised with this award is testament to the work not only of the I-SPHERE team but also the leading charities, frontline service workers, academic colleagues and policymakers with whom we collaborate.”
The team would like to thank all of our funders, partners, collaborators, colleagues, research participants and supporters for making this possible. Thanks too for all the lovely messages of congratulations.
We look forward to continuing to work with you all to drive research which can improve more lives.