University of Liverpool emerges successful at North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards

The University of Liverpool had a successful night at the 2023 North West Coast Research and Innovation Awards last week winning three prizes.

The awards recognise the best innovators and researchers in health and care in the North West Coast from NHS organisations, industry and academic partners, third sector organisations, local authorities and other collaborators in health innovation.

Dr Farnaz Nickpour, from the School of Engineering and Director of the Inclusionaries Lab and PhD researcher Andrew Tibbles, won the NWC Culture for Innovation Award in collaboration with Marie Curie Hospice Liverpool for the `Design meets palliative care’ project.

The project centres on a Design-Researcher-in-Residence model positioning design researchers at the heart of a busy hospice and co-locating design principles and practices with health and care expertise. The next step of the project is to work with Marie Curie, to learn from the process and outcomes and to adopt and scale nationally.

Photo of the team from the University and Marie Curie with their award
Winners of the CULTURE FOR INNOVATION Award

Piotr Teodorowski (below), a PhD student with the Institute of Population Health, won the Research Student of the Year Award for his research exploring the involvement and engagement of seldom-heard communities in big data research.

As part of his research, he is reviewing existing data and evidence around public involvement in big data research and is interviewing Polish and South Asian participants who have not contributed to big data research to understand how they could be involved.

Photo of Piotr Teodorowski

The University, in collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University, won the Tackling Health Inequalities Award for the Ask Listen Act project.

This multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional study looked at the impact of the pandemic on children with special educational needs and disabilities’ (SEND) education, health and social care, and identified policy priorities to better support children with SEND.

The research team (below) involves Professor Amel Alghrani from the University’s School of Law & Social Justice and the study has had national impact on Government policy and practice, with the findings being incorporated into the new SEND Green Paper.



The winners were announced at a ceremony held at The Spine hosted by BBC TV North West and Breakfast presenter Roger Johnson.

The awards were hosted by the Innovation Agency, NIHR Clinical Research Network: North West Coast (CRN NWC) and The Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (ARC NWC).