2024 Excellence Awards Lunch and Winners
1st July 2024
The MRS Excellence Awards lunch was held on Friday, June 7, at Smith & Wollensky in London. This joyous event, sponsored by Foreign Tongues, celebrated personal achievements and welcomed our new fellows.
2024 Excellence Awards Winners
Ian Brace has been awarded the MRS Gold Medal, the organisation’s highest honour, in recognition of nearly 40 years of dedicated support to institutions that protect and promote the research sector, as well as his outstanding work supporting sector-related charities.
MRS Advanced Certificate in Market & Social Research Practice Award went to Kate Sillis. Kate works in customer insight at Sheffield Hallam University, utilising market research to understand student perspectives and trends and thereby inform decision-making.
MRS Annual Conference 2024 Audience Award was awarded to Nick North, Jatin Aythora, Kelly Beaver MBE, Chris Lindsley & Josh Muncke for Insights revolution: navigating new horizons with generative AI. In their keynote, a team of expert panellists shared their experiences with generative AI, evaluating its opportunities and limitations while considering its impact on the market research sector. The panel explored how generative AI can support research needs, the evolving role of researchers, and the ethical challenges associated with this technology.
Elias Kyriazis, Alan Pomering & Heather Marciano were awarded the MRS Silver Medal for People with a mild intellectual disability: Inclusive Research Lessons, a pager that provides guidelines for researchers working with individuals with mild intellectual disability (MID). Collaborating with the Disability Sector, Cancer Council NSW, and the MID community, it addresses challenges in understanding mainstream cancer prevention messages. By co-creating easily understandable resources, the project encouraged nearly 20% of the vulnerable population to check themselves for skin cancer spots for the first time.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Changemaker of the Year award was given to Christine Hemphill. Christine was nominated for conducting and delivering disability and age-inclusive research, as well as role-modelling and educating individuals, organisations, and industries on the positive value and impact of inclusive research.
The Sustainability Changemaker Award honours individuals in the research, insight, and data analytics sector driven to create meaningful change and actively contribute to solutions for the growing climate crisis. This year it was awarded to Michael Hanbury Williams for leading UM’s sustainability strategy.
The new Honorary Posthumous Fellows 2024 were Dr Alan Branthwaite, Mel Crowther and Mike Trotman. Introduced in February 2024, Honorary Posthumous Fellowships are awarded to individuals who, in the opinion of the Main Board, have rendered exceptional services to the Society, its members, or the profession but were not nominated for Fellowship or Honorary Fellowship during their lifetime.
Keith Hughes, Dr. Stephen Jenkins, and Geoff Wright were named new honorary fellows in 2024. They were awarded Honorary Fellowships for creating the Triple-S standard, which transfers data and variables between survey systems. The Triple-S standard transfers survey data and variables between various survey programs, regardless of the software or hardware platform used.
The New Fellows in 2024 were:
Kristin Hickey
Alex Hunt
Sinead Jefferies
Donald Osborne
Jon Puleston
James Sallows
Colin Strong
Caroline Wren
