Winners of £50,000 research prizes announced
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Published
22 December 2023
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The University of East London has announced the winners of the inaugural Impact Builder Competition, revealing the depth and breadth of research across the University. Three submissions were chosen: a project examining the online provision of social prescribing for mental health, a model of effective flood evacuation co-produced with schools in Japan and the UK, and a project to map the movement of ticks to control the spread of the parasites. They each received £50,000 to advance their research.
Professor Matt Bellgard, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Impact and Innovation was impressed by the quality of the competition submissions, especially the three who won. He said,
These projects demonstrate how our research community can create impactful responses to global challenges and their local consequences, build interdisciplinary teams and engage with external partners.”
Tracking and controlling tick spread
The final project researched ticks, small parasitic arachnids related to spiders and scorpions, which can carry diseases. Some of those diseases, like tick-borne encephalitis, are fatal to humans.
The winning research by Professor Sally Cutler of the Department of Bioscience and Dr Saeed Sharif, Associate Professor in AI & Innovative Medical Technology aims to develop an AI model to map areas where tick numbers are increasing. That will enable researchers to gain a better understanding of tick movements and help devise strategies to control the arachnids.
Professor Sally Cutler welcomed the award and said, “This support provides a fantastic opportunity to kick-start a project that can have real potential to reduce the burden of tick-borne diseases.”
Mapping social prescribing for better mental health
The first winner, a joint project of the Department of Psychology, the Institute for Connected Communities (ICC) and the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, examined social prescribing interventions and the effectiveness of delivering such interventions online, rather than face-to-face.
Social prescribing is a non-clinical option which connects people with mild but complex mental health issues to community-based treatment. It might include encouraging individuals to join a walking group or to take up gardening or swimming.
Professor Ian Tucker of the Department of Psychology was among the academics leading the research and he expressed his satisfaction at the team’s win. He said, “We are delighted to receive funding to work with local and national organisations to investigate the current and future impacts of digital social prescribing.”
The £50,000 from the Impact Builder Competition will be used for the current research, and for a bid to get further funding to scale up the project, to work with social prescribing networks abroad as well as in the UK.
Effective flood evacuation co-designed with schools
The second project looked at evacuation procedures in the event of flooding, both in Britain and Japan, getting input from schools to improve those procedures. It was a joint effort by the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) and the School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering.
The project collaborated with the different schools to understand their views on evacuation and create a model based on their suggestions and experiences. Led by Dr Ravindra Jayaratne, Dr Hebba Haddad and research assistant Maciej Pawlik, the project aimed to enable more effective flood evacuation using datasets collected by high school children from their local community.
Dr Ravindra Jayaratne said, “It has been an amazing experience of brain-storming new research ideas and drafting a proposal with in-house and international experts in the fields of engineering, education, and psychology.”
About the Impact Builder Sandpit competition
The first Impact Builder Sandpit Competition was launched in January this year, to nurture interdisciplinary research at UEL and accelerate the impact of research projects.
Initially, 28 proposals were submitted, involving 86 UEL researchers, along with local, national and international academic and non-academic partners. 19 projects were then chosen as finalists, with a panel chaired by Professor Bellgard, finally selecting the three winners.
Find out more about research at UEL.