Social Sciences Division colleagues recognised in Vice-Chancellor’s Awards 

5 June 2026

Individuals and teams from across the Social Sciences Division were recognised as winners and highly commended entries in the 2026 Vice-Chancellor’s Awards were announced on 4 June. 

Across the Division five projects were named Winners in their categories, with a further two Highly Commended. A remarkable success across 13 categories, demonstrating the high-quality teaching, research and professional services contribution across the Division.

In the Research and Discovery category:

• Borders, Mobility, and Livelihoods, a mixed-method research project from Oxford Department of International Development exploring refugees' cross-border mobility in East Africa with policy impacts at multiple levels, won the Research Engagement Award.
• Two projects from the Division won the the Research Culture Award. The Research Culture Toolkit, a collaborative University-wide project to provide a consistent approach to surfacing, sharing and supporting good practice in research culture from a team including Lindsey Spriggs and Gillian Willis, from the Social Sciences Divisional Office won the Research Culture Award was announced as Winner alongside Papers with Purpose: Transforming Research Culture through Writing from the Department of Education and University of Cape Town.
• Bridget Steele, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, was awarded the Breakthrough Researcher Award for her research shaping national approaches to preventing sexual violence in higher education, while positioning Oxford as a leader in evidence-informed policy and practice.

In the Enabling our Mission category:

• Motherhood at Work, a project leveraging peer learning circles to empower mothers at work to develop leadership capability, share lived experience, and influence more inclusive workplace cultures, from a team including Elisha Ward, Social Sciences Divisional Office, and Clare Oxenbury-Palmer, Faculty of Law, received the Empowering People Award.

Neurodivergent Education for Students, Teaching and Learning (NESTL), a collaborative, co-created project transforming Oxford’s learning environment through inclusive, evidence-based resources and research was Highly Commended in the the Support for Students Award. And OxTrack, which assesses teacher competences across 48 knowledge domains enabling teachers to compare results with national averages and receive personalised feedback, was Highly Commended in the the Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship Award.

There were 170 award entries across the 13 categories this year, with over 1,000 individuals included in the nominations. Find out more on the Awards webpage.