2024 Winners

The 2024 Heriot-Watt University PRIME Awards took place during Celebration Week, celebrating engaging and impactful research projects and team who are having impact on the world around us.

The Principal's Research Impact and Engagement Awards, or PRIME Awards, recognise outstanding achievement, innovation and creativity in impact and public engagement with research; celebrating activities with the potential to create economic, social, environmental and cultural impact from research, and engage broad publics, new stakeholders and underserved audiences.

Six teams took home the coveted awards for their Inspiring, Involving, Innovating and Influencing research engagement, and the new Sustainable Futures Award was presented to two outstanding teams who's research is contributing to the creation of a more sustainable and resilient future for all. 

Winners and Highly Commended

Involve

Recognising a research project and/or team that has actively involved publics or patients in the development and delivery of research, to ensure that the research priorities and innovations are societally relevant  

Winner: Ageing Health and Social Care

Mary Stewart; Bryony Nisbet; Kate Sang; Zorbay Cetin; Jane Dey; Camilla Irvine-Fortescue; HW Engage; Joseph Long, Scottish Autism, Iceberg Productions Team, Ian Noble (The Untold MPC) Clare Mills (Listen, Think, Draw); Jose Manuel Menendez Montes, Ann Jones, Kirin Illiar and Wei Lin Poh

Highly Commended: Watt-Whales

Lauren McWhinnie; Emily Hague; Emilie Dufresne; Emily Brown; Laura Wicks; Samantha Clark

Inspire 

Recognising a research project and/or team that has demonstrated and can evidence inspirational impact on society, from inspiring the next generation, to engaging defined communities in research.  

Winner: D21PE Teaching Team

Malcolm Chrisp; Guy Walker

Highly Commended: EmPOWER

Jasmine Low; Peter Lee; Renuga T Rethinam; Marques Jeevan Menon

Influence

Recognising a research project/team that have had a demonstrable impact and can evidence local or global impact on policy and/or through the media, creating links between academia, impacted communities, civil society and policymakers.  

Winner: Multiple Inequalities and Air Pollution Abatement Policies

Claudia Aravena; Jyldyz Tabyldy Kyzy; Jorge Bonilla; Ricardo Morales

Highly Commended:  Mathematical modelling of the UK squirrel system

Andy White; Andrew Slade; Hannah Jones; Peter Lurz

Highly Commended: Cathal Cummins: Modelling COVID -19

Innovate

Recognising a research project/team who have realised and can evidence the commercial potential and economic impact of their research, local or globally, either through working with industrial partners or spinning out a company 

Winner: STOPY

Omar Laghrouche; Ahmet F Esen; Mark Bruce; Serge Gomez; Ema Beka; Graeme McInnes

Highly Commended: Telepresence 2

Mauro Dragone; Scott MacLeod; Mary Stewart; William Wright; Stephanie Sutherland; Ann Jones; Jane Dey; Lynne Raventos; Stephen Yarwood; Finance

Sustainable Futures 

Recognising a research project or team that has strived for and can evidence the development of innovative technological solutions to contribute towards attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Winner: Circular Chemical Economy

Umit Bititci; Bing Xu ; Parinaz Pourrahimian; Melissa Marques-McEwan; Yingfang Yuan; Wei Pang; Qianqian Ma; Behrouz Arabi; Rossen Kazakov

Winner: Geochemical - Carbon Dioxide Removal

Phil Renforth; Laura Bastianini; James Campbell; Erdinc Cosgun; Spyros Foteinis; Veronica Furey; Kirsty Harrington; Olivia Hawrot; Mohammad Madankan; Rachel Millar; Isara Muangthai; Dan Su; Aimee Titche; Callum Ward; Jaswanth Yaddala