Strathclyde picks up coveted title on awards night

The Glasgow institution picked up the coveted title at a ceremony held in London yesterday evening attended by more than 1,000 staff from universities and colleges across the UK.

Judges in the awards were impressed with how Strathclyde’s dedication to working with industry had taken shape over the past year with a series of groundbreaking initiatives.

Its "transformational year" saw the technological institution invest almost £90 million in a Technology and Innovation Centre to unite academia and industry.

The university also established the UK's first Fraunhofer Institute – Europe's largest research contract organisation – through the creation of a Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics.

As well as doubling its research income from business and industry to £6.2 million, Strathclyde was also selected as the exclusive European partner for South Korea's global research and commercialisation programme.

John Gill, editor of Times Higher Education, said the institution's focus on "really meaningful" partnerships with industry "had come together in an impressive way in the past 12 months, and the judges were clear that it was a worthy winner".

Other winners at the ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane included John Goddard, emeritus professor of regional development studies at Newcastle University, who won the Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award; and Mark Brandon, senior lecturer in environmental science at the Open University, who was named Most Innovative Teacher of the Year.

The University of Huddersfield won the title of Entrepreneurial University of the Year; Queen Mary, University of London won Research Project of the Year; and Durham University won for its Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology.

The award for Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community went to the British School of Osteopathy; the University of Westminster was named as organising the International Collaboration of the Year; and Northumbria University picked up the title for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts.

Other winners included the University of Glamorgan, which won the award for Outstanding Support for Students; Lancaster University Management School, which was named as Business School of the Year; the University of Lincoln, which triumphed in the Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiative category; and the University of Nottingham, which took the prize for its Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development.

London South Bank University won the award for Widening Participation Initiative of the Year; the prize for Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year went to the University of Southampton; and the nominee judged to have provided the most Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers was the University of York.

The University of Chester won the title for Most Improved Student Experience and Newcastle University for the Outstanding Contribution to Leadership Development.

The awards ceremony was conducted by comedian David Walliams.

simon.baker@tsleducation.com