Sussex Awards

We celebrated the incredible contributions from our staff and postgraduate researchers with the Sussex Awards. Learn about our broad range of categories and who won.

Sussex Awards 2025

Our new Sussex Awards programme recognises the brilliant work of our staff and postgraduate researcher (PGR) community, across a range of award categories. We‘ve brought together previous Education, Research Culture and Research Impact Awards and added new categories, giving us more opportunities to celebrate the breadth of work taking place across our Faculties and Divisions.

Timeline

• 30 January to 16 March 2025 – Sussex Awards open for nominations
• mid-March to early May – judging panels chaired by portfolio leaders chose shortlist and winners
• 6 May 2025 – shortlisted nominees invited to Sussex Awards event at the Attenborough Centre, where winners were announced.

Award categories

Explore our wide range of award categories and read through the winners.

Education and student life

• Inclusive Education

  This award recognises staff who deliver and/or support inclusive practices in education at Sussex, promoting accessibility, equality, and diversity in teaching, services, and student support.

  Winners: Tim Cane and Tilly Ambrose, and the Global Studies Neurodivergent Working Group (joint winners)

• Education for Employability and World Readiness

  This award honours those who embed employability skills and world readiness in the student experience, through teaching, career services and support, internships, and guidance, preparing students for life after Sussex.

  Winners: Julia Hartviksen, Suchitra Richards and Jessica Eustace

• Community Impact, Scholarship and Social Responsibility

  This award celebrates staff who integrate community engagement, impactful scholarship and social responsibility into teaching and learning, inspiring students and colleagues to make a positive difference locally and/or globally.

  Winner: Alison Bailey

• Collaborative Learning and Innovation

  This award acknowledges teams of staff and students who co-create educational experiences, fostering a sense of belonging, creativity, and partnership through collaboration across departments and roles.

  Winners: the Engineering and Product Design Mentors

Research and innovation

• Research and Innovation Excellence

  This award recognises individuals or teams for driving or supporting transformative research and/or innovation in any discipline or across disciplines that make significant advances in understanding and/or methodology.

  Winners: the Brains on Board team

• Open Research

  This award recognises achievements or innovation in research and research practice that have exemplified our new Sussex value of openness, or that have enabled colleagues to achieve greater openness in their work, building our contribution to global knowledge equity. This might be through co-creation with partners or community, or sharing of knowledge from any part of the research process.

  Winner: Andre Maia Chagas

• Research and Innovation Culture

  This award recognises exceptional contributions to Sussex’s research culture, ensuring our whole research community can flourish. The award recognises activities that enhance diversity, equality and inclusion in our research community, build research integrity, enable researchers at any/all career stages through new opportunities, skills development, recognition, or vitalise collaboration across boundaries.

  Winners: Ozgu Karakulak and Daniel Fisher

• Research and Innovation Impact

  This award recognises individuals or teams whose research or research support has led to real-world change or benefit, demonstrating how research makes a difference beyond academia.

  Winners: the Materials Physics Group

Education and research

• Postgraduate Researcher Support

  This award recognises individuals or teams who have developed: innovative training, activities or interventions enabling postgraduate researchers to flourish, novel ways of reflecting on the work of PGRs, or targeted support for underrepresented identities or PGR communities.

  Winners: Guy Edwards, Josh Francis and Charlotte Austwick

Global and civic engagement

• Global Engagement

  This is awarded for the leadership and development of significant activities relating to global engagement, which could include: establishing or growing impactful international partnerships in education, research, scholarship, and/or knowledge exchange.

  Winners: the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIP-C) team

• Civic Engagement

  This award recognises the leadership and development of significant activities relating to civic engagement, which could include: public and community engagement, involvement of staff and/or students in the life and work of external organisations in the public, private, or voluntary sectors, or contributions to community life more generally.

  Winners: Stephen Wilkins and the Sussex Universe team

Sussex people

• Inclusive Sussex

  This award recognises those who create a campus environment that values difference, where everyone is supported to feel that they belong and can thrive. Highlighting those who collaborate with diverse groups within the University or our wider community, bringing creative new ways to support inclusion of minoritised voices.

  Winner: Chris Derbyshire

• Contribution to Campus Life

  This is awarded to those who work behind the scenes, going the extra mile to support our students and staff. They embody the Sussex values of kindness and inclusion, and make studying or working at Sussex a more positive experience.

  Winner: Chay Burt
  

Transforming Sussex

• Environmental Sustainability

  This award recognises a significant contribution to the Environmental Sustainability themes of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are looking for evidence from our research, our education or our work with our local civic and global communities that demonstrates a significant benefit to one of the following SDGs: Zero Hunger; Clean Water; Clean Energy and Climate Action; Sustainable Cities and Communities; Responsible Consumption and Production, and Life Below Water and On Land.

  Winners: the Climate Fresk team

• Institutional Improvement and Transformation

  This award recognises those who are helping Sussex to transform and embrace the future. This award celebrates individuals or teams who have created new opportunities and/or delivered innovative work, from improving our systems, processes and procedures, to furthering interactive and distinctive learning or transformative research. It can also be awarded for projects that have helped the University progress into new digital and data spaces, either directly or by enabling others to flourish.

  Winner: Tina Lehmbeck