Trinity Research Excellence Awards 2020

In developing the awards, however, we soon hit on the problem of what their ideal format could be. Traditional awards can often impose time limits on activity, or place people in categories according to their apparent “seniority”. They can also tend to only recognise certain activity that might not always reflect the depth and range of research activity that happens in a university. We wanted to avoid these pitfalls, and to create a set of awards that would include everyone, academic and professional staff alike. We also wanted to encourage the recognition of all kinds of research activity. To do this, the Office of the Dean of Research decided to link our awards to the principles in the Research Charter which outline our vision of how research is done here.

We asked the Trinity community to nominate those colleagues they felt most embodied the spirit of the principles, and they responded with incredible enthusiasm! We received nearly 100 nominations from all across the university that highlighted all sorts of research activity. Most notable across all the submissions, was the huge respect and admiration everyone had for their colleagues. Of course, this also made the awards committee’s task even more difficult in deciding who the recipients would be.

We had planned to hold a ceremony on April 2nd at which the awards would be announced and celebrated. Although an in-person event is no longer possible, we are still pleased to announce the recipients of the Trinity Research Excellence Awards for 2020. Over the coming weeks, we will be highlighting each of the recipients and their work on researchMATTERS. All of the nominees have shown an inspiring commitment to living the principles of our charter in how they conduct their research. We are delighted to share the list of recipients with you here, and extend our congratulations to them and all of our colleagues who were nominated for an award.