Law Faculty Success at Excellence in Impact Awards
Congratulations to the Law Faculty winners of the O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards, which were announced on Thursday 19th April in a ceremony at St Anne’s College, Oxford.
Dr Rachel Condry won the overall O2RB Excellence in Impact Champion Award for her work on preventing adolescent to parent violence
A project led by Dr Rachel Condry has won first prize in this year’s O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards. The awards recognise and reward innovative social sciences projects which have made a social or economic difference to individuals, communities, and societies. She was presented with her award by Alun Evans (pictured right).
This research was the first large-scale study of Adolescent to Parent Violence (APV) in the UK and provided systematic evidence of the size and the scale of the problem. Findings from the research have enabled agencies to justify and evidence the need for a coherent response to APV, and have been instrumental in raising public awareness of this form of violence. The involvement of a multi-agency group including government departments, statutory bodies and third sector services led to the first recognition of APV in UK government policy and subsequently to publication by the Home Office of official guidance for professionals. This guidance has been widely used by statutory and voluntary agencies across the UK, leading to local changes in practice and to date, remains the only government guidance on the problem of APV.
Dr Shona Minson won the O2RB Early Career Impact Champion Award for work on improving outcomes for children of mothers facing sentences
Dr Minson’s project was celebrated for her work in bringing attention to the welfare of children in the sentencing process. Dr Minson has produced films and briefing papers which have been rolled out nationwide, and have already influenced individual cases and legal practice more widely. She has collaborated with a wide range of partners, including the Prison Reform Trust, National Probation Service, the Criminal Bar, and the Magistrates Association, to name a few. She has also started to work with parliamentarians to help develop a more systematic change in how children of imprisoned parents are supported.
Professor Abigail Adams and Professor Jeremias Prassl won the O2RB Excellence in Impact Award for research which led to Supreme Court overturning employment tribunal fees
The team’s research was celebrated for its direct contribution to the overturning of a Supreme Court judgement, which led to the abolishment of employment tribunal fees. Research by Professor Adams (an economist) and Professor Prassl (a lawyer) led to the building of a detailed economic model which demonstrated the adverse effect that fees had on employment tribunal justice. They were then able to use this evidence to directly support the senior barristers who were appealing the judgement. As a result, the Ministry of Justice was obligated to refund more than £30 million in employment tribunal fees which had been collected illegally. The presentation of the award was made by Professor Peter Kemp, Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
Highly Commended
About the awards
The O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards have three categories: Excellence in Impact Awards for established researchers, an Early Career Impact Champion, and an overall Impact Champion. There will also be a number of projects in the first two categories which are recognised as Highly Commended.
Winning entries receive a cash prize of £2,500 to support the continuation of this impact work.
The awards were organized by O2RB – a regional impact partnership between the Universities of Oxford, Reading, Oxford Brookes, and the Open University, and supported by the Oxford ESRC Impact Acceleration Account and Taylor & Francis.
Chair of the O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards panel, Professor Mark Pollard (Associate Head of Division (Research), Social Sciences) said:
‘The awards have been a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the exceptional impacts on society being made by social scientists from the four partner institutions. The panel have been impressed with the diversity and depth of the projects recognised, and hope that this will inspire even more social scientists to explore what impact might look like for their research, and the ways in which it might be achieved.’