As nominations close for the Engagement and Enterprise Awards, we asked some of last year's finalists and winners about their projects, and what it means to them.
Katie’s Team is an East London patient and public involvement group which began in 2015 and was funded by Centre for Public Engagement from 2015 until mid 2017. The group is made up of local mothers, pregnant women, carers and family members with an interest in improving the quality of research within women’s health conducted by the Women’s Health Research Unit and our research partners. The group meets roughly 3 times a year with continues to engage via emails and newsletters on a two monthly basis.
Katie’s Team was nominated for the 2017 Engagement and Enterprise Awards following a busy year, where one of the members of Katie’s Team led on peer-reviewed academic publication outlining how public engagement can improve the quality of research within women’s health along with the group contributing to numerous other research projects, which were subsequently funded.
The nomination allowed the work conducted within Katie’s Team to gain prominence within the University and wider afield as the video summary created for the award ceremony was widely disseminated. The nomination also meant that members of Katie’s Team, staff within Queen Mary and Barts Health NHS Trust that contributed to engagement work Katie’s Team conducts received the credit they deserved. Moreover, the nomination provided Katie’s Team a platform to gain further funding to grow and sustain the PPI group both from within Queen Mary and other external charitable organisations.
Attending the awards ceremony in February was inspirational as myself and one of the group’s members, Ngawai Moss were able to see how other faculties and groups within Queen Mary conduct public engagement, thereby allowing us to improve and further develop Katie’s Team, which we hope will move from strength to strength in the future.
Katie's Team were shortlisted for an Involve Award at the 2017 Engagement and Enterprise Awards.