Leicester announced as Overall Winner at the Impact Awards 2015
The University has scooped the title of Overall Winner 2015 at the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and PraxisUnico Impact Awards, which were held at a ceremony in Central Hall, Westminster, last night (15 September), bringing together more than 200 invited guests from academia, industry and government.
The University’s KEC team established the Advanced Structural Dynamics Evaluation Centre (ASDEC) in an automotive cluster, which has created a consultancy service with a healthy pipeline of business from the companies around it. It has made it easier for knowledge exchange to happen, raised the profile of the University as a sector expert, and made working with them more attractive to external businesses.
Anjuu Trevedi, who was the lead Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation Professional for this work, said: “We are incredibly proud and pleased to be named the Overall Winner at the Impact Awards. The hard work and enormous effort we have put into this has really paid off. These Awards are a fantastic way for KEC teams within the sector to be recognised for the value they bring to the sector as well as competitive advantage to companies involved. We would like to thank everyone at the University of Leicester, our funders and the companies involved with ASDEC for their support in making this all possible.”
Professor Sarah Hainsworth, lead academic and Director of ASDEC said: “We are delighted to have won this prestigious award which acknowledges our success in developing ASDEC. We are a globally unique facility that offers commercial structural dynamics consultancy and research to industry using 3D laser vibrometry. Our engineering expertise is key to solving problems and developing new designs for industry across a broad range of sectors and our professional team brings a wealth of industry and academic expertise to provide analysis capability with unprecedented measurement speed, reliability and resolution.”
ASDEC won the Contribution to Business award, which recognises the outstanding contribution that knowledge exchange, knowledge transfer and commercialisation activities have had in benefiting a company and/or the economy. The winners of the three awards were then put forward for Overall Winner 2015, which includes up to £50,000 award money to be used to invest in enhancing their KEC activities.