Queen's Anniversary Prize awarded to two NIHR School for Social Care Research members

The Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of York both received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further and Higher Education. In each case, this was in recognition of their achievements in social care research and impacts on the well-being of the nation. PSSRU is led by Professor Martin Knapp, who is Director of the NIHR School for Social Care Research (SSCR); and Professor Caroline Glendinning, who is Associate Director of SSCR, is Research Director of the Adults, Older People and Carers Team at SPRU.

LSE Health and Social Care - of which PSSRU is a part - won the prize for applying research to the advancement of global health and social care policy, and bridging the gap between research and policy. The award recognised the significant contributions that the Unit's social care programme has made to social and long-term care policy over the last twenty years.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Director General Research & Development at the Department of Health, commented: 'The contribution of the Centre to the economics of social care is unrivalled. It has an established national and international reputation for the quality of its analytical models and analyses'. 

The Social Policy Research Unit was recognised for its long-term contribution to UK social policies to improve the lives of vulnerable people. A major strand of SPRU's research has been its work with disabled and older adults and their carers'.

David Behan, Director General for Social Care, wrote in support of the Unit that ‘The work of SPRU has had considerable impact on policy development both directly in specific areas of policy innovation and more indirectly in framing wider debates. Its well-established research on outcomes in social care, in particular, has made a central contribution to shifting policy-making away from a service focus to a more outcomes-centred approach’.

The announcements were made on 18 November at a ceremony at St James's Palace.

First introduced in 1994 in commemoration for the 40th anniversary of the Queen's reign, the biennial Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education are separate from but sit alongside the Queen's Awards for Enterprise in the National Honours System. They were founded and are administered by the independent charity The Royal Anniversary Trust and are awarded to Higher Educational Institutions which demonstrate work of a world-class standard of excellence contributing to the well-being of the nation.

These awards reflect the excellent reputations of these two units in adult social care research, and the work of the SSCR is now building on this platform and the work of other expert groups.

Further information on the award to LSE Health and Social Care:

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/newsArchive/archives/2009/11/queensPrize.aspx

Further information on the award to the Social Policy Research Unit:

http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/news/qap.html