Award winners (top to bottom): Rhiannon Chalmers-Brown, Andrew Rogers and Sudesna Shrestha. With thanks to Prof. Paul Harrison for presenting the awards.
On Tuesday 10th September 2019 the third Annual KESS 2 Awards Event was hosted at the Celtic Manor Resort in Caerleon, Newport. With engaging 3-minute presentations by our KESS 2 and KESS 2 East participants, the evening was once again a platform for these researchers from across Wales to compete for a chance to win up to two KESS 2 awards; the Overall Presentation Winner and the Sustainability Award. A third award was also given for entries to the Research Images Competition, with the winner being decided beforehand by a VIP judging panel. We would like to extend a special thanks to Prof. Paul Harrison from the University of South Wales who presented the awards on the evening.
There were 15 presentations in total, double the entries from last year’s event, which were judged on the night by our delegates based on a criteria of delivery, clarity, engagement and evidence of collaboration. An additional criteria was judged separately by Dr Einir Young and Dr Gwenith Elias of The Sustainability Lab at Bangor University, based on how well each presentation addressed the ‘Well-being of Future Generations Act’ (2015).
Rhiannon Chalmers-Brown, University of South Wales PhD student working in partnership with Tata Steel, was the overall presentation winner whilst Andrew Rogers, a PhD student from Bangor University and working in partnership with the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, was awarded The Sustainability Award. Highly Commended in the Sustainability category was Emma Samuel (Cardiff Metropolitan University PhD candidate working with ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre), whilst Aimee Challenger (Cardiff University PhD candidate working with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board) was highly commended for her overall presentation.
The event also saw the return of the Research Images competition, this year following the theme ‘Impact’. Sudesna Shrestha, MRes student from Swansea University working in partnership with Innoture Ltd., was awarded the prize for Best Research Image. Highly commended were Sophie Davies (Cardiff University MPhil student working with Welsh Brew Tea) and Amy Williams Schwartz (Cardiff University PhD student working with Eco-explore). The image competition was judged externally by Lisa Matthews-Jones (Portfolio Manager, Arts Council of Wales), Alison Mitchell (Director of Development, Vitae), and Mererid Gordon (KESS 2 Marketing, Design & Publicity Officer).
As always, the event serves as a showcase for the innovative ESF funded research projects currently taking place in Wales as part of the Welsh Government supported programme. Every KESS 2 project forges connections between business and academia and the event, which will continue to run annually, brings the opportunity for each of these groups to connect, discuss and celebrate their ongoing research projects.
Click the links below to view the event photo gallery, the presentation slides or the research image submissions.
