Finalists for prestigious Celebrating Impact Prize 2024 announced

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is pleased to announce the finalists for its Celebrating Impact Prize 2024.

The ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize is now in its 12th year.

The prize is an annual opportunity to recognise the success of ESRC-funded researchers in achieving and enabling outstanding economic or societal impact from their research.

In 2024, ESRC will award prizes for:

  • Outstanding Business and Enterprise Impact
  • Outstanding Early Career Impact
  • Outstanding International Impact
  • Outstanding Public Policy Impact
  • Outstanding Societal Impact

Remarkable achievements

ESRC Executive Chair Stian Westlake said:

The Celebrating Impact Prize is the Economic and Social Research Council’s way of recognising the remarkable achievements of the UK’s outstanding economists and social scientists.

These researchers have made valuable contributions in many fields, from reducing the impact on children of parental conflict to unveiling the corporate malfeasance involved in the Post Office scandal.

They have helped to ensure people’s legal and human rights are better protected, while showing us that there may be new and better ways of organising our working lives.

I am proud that the Economic and Social Research Council has funded these valuable projects, and that we have the opportunity to celebrate the significant impact achieved.

£10,000 prize

All finalists will have a film made about their work and its impact and have attended media training.

Winners are awarded £10,000 to spend on further knowledge exchange, public engagement or other communications activities.

Awarding the prizes

The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 20 November 2024.

Read more about the Celebrating Impact Prize.

Further information

2024 Celebrating Impact Prize finalists

Team application: The Centre for Child Protection, University of Kent

Entrants:

  • Dr Tracee Green, University of Kent
  • Dr Aravinda Kosaraju, University of Kent
  • Emma Soutar, University of Kent

Project title: Integrating a trauma informed approach to investigating child sexual exploitation

Professor Charlotte O’Brien, University of York

Project title: Supporting strategic litigation to secure EU nationals’ post-Brexit rights

Team application: Digit working time reduction team

Entrants:

  • Professor Brendan Burchell, University of Cambridge
  • Dr David Frayne, University of Salford

Project title: Improving productivity and wellbeing with a four-day working week

Professor Gordon Harold, University of Cambridge

Project title: Reducing parental conflict to improve outcomes for children

Professor Neil Stewart, University of Warwick

Project title: Informing the financial conduct authority’s measures to help consumers take better control of their spending

Team application: OSR4Rights research group

Entrants:

  • Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees, Swansea University
  • Dr Daragh Murray, Queen Mary University of London
  • Dr Phil Bartie, Heriot-Watt University
  • Dr Alexa Koenig, University of California, Berkeley
  • Dr Riza Batista-Navarro, The University of Manchester
  • Sam Dubberley, Human Rights Watch
  • Dave Mateer, HM Software

Project title: Strengthening the use of open source research in human rights investigations

Team application: The Post Office Scandal Project

Entrants:

  • Professor Richard Moorhead, University of Exeter
  • Dr Karen Nokes, University College London
  • Dr Rebecca Helm, University of Exeter
  • Dr Sally Day, University of Exeter
  • Paul Gilbert, LBC Wise Counsel

Project title: The Post Office Scandal: lawyers’ ethics and ruined lives

Dr Timo Leiter, London School of Economics and Political Science

Project title: Better prepared: new global targets strengthen climate adaptation and resilience

Top image:  Credit: Delmaine Donson, E+ via Getty Images

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