LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY WINS NATIONAL AWARDS FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE

London South Bank University (LSBU) has recently won (30 August) a number of prestigious awards for teaching excellence from Advance HE, one of the leading organisations providing practical support and advice to higher education institutions.

LSBU has been presented with a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) which recognises and rewards collaborative work that has had a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning across the University as a whole. The CATE award specifically acknowledges the achievement of LSBU’s enterprise and innovation team, in embedding enterprise across the university, in academic staff teams, professional service group staff teams and student enterprise ambassadors.

The CATE award also highlights LSBU’s achievement in bringing together discipline-specific expertise, external networks and the student voice to develop and deliver an innovative programme of curricular and extra-curricular activities.  These activities have been designed to support students and graduates, helping them to develop enterprising skills for employment that boost their entrepreneurial ambitions to start businesses.  Since September 2014, the University’s Enterprise and Innovation team has supported over 18,000 students and graduates to participate in curricular and extra-curricular enterprise activities.

National Teaching Fellowship Awards

Three members of LSBU’s academic teaching staff have also distinguished themselves this year by winning National Teaching Fellowships for teaching excellence from Advance HE. They are Gill Foster, Head of Arts and Performance in the School of Arts and Creative Industries, Professor Patrick Callaghan, Dean of LSBU’s School of Applied Sciences and Dr Stephen Dance, Course Director for Environmental and Architectural Acoustics in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. 

The awards to LSBU staff are part of a wider group of 54 new National Teaching Fellows announced today by Advance HE, alongside fifteen winning teams in the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence category.

Professor David Phoenix, LSBU’s Vice-Chancellor, said:

“I am delighted to see LSBU’s academic staff once again being recognised for their expertise and commitment to encouraging enterprise and innovation throughout the University with this Collaborative Teaching award from Advance HE. I am also exceptionally proud of the fact that three staff have received personal recognition of their achievements via teaching fellowships. 

“Between them, these awards show our institutional commitment to teaching research and enterprise and recognise the excellence of our staff and what they are achieving on a daily basis.”

Alison Johns, Advance HE’s chief executive, said,

“The award of a National Teaching Fellowship is an outstanding achievement and I know that the whole sector will join me in congratulating the 54 new NTFs as well as the CATE winners.”

“Advance HE is very proud to run these awards on behalf of the sector. A key part of our role in this programme is to work with both NTFs and CATE winners to showcase their work so that others can learn and benefit from their success.

Professor Stephen May, Senior Vice-Principal at the Royal Veterinary College and Chair of the UK Teaching Awards Panel, said,

“The panel was delighted to see even greater levels of participation this year, with a 40 per cent increase across both sets of awards. The process to identify NTFs and CATE winners is a rigorous one which now includes the training and selection of reviewers. NTFs and CATE winners richly deserve these awards and the sector is rightly proud of them.”

This year, up to six of the 15 winning teams will receive an additional ‘Spotlight Award’ which highlights particular aspects of collaborative practice or the outcomes of collaborations from which the broader HE sector can benefit. The ‘Spotlight Awards’ will be announced at the NTFS and CATE awards ceremony on 7 November.

About the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) awards: The NTF and CATE schemes are open to all higher education providers in the UK. There are now more than 860 NTFs. Institutions may nominate up to three individuals per annum.  The schemes are open to all staff whose teaching or support roles enhance the student learning experience. The NTF and CATE schemes will run again in 2019; details will follow in due course.

About Advance HE:  Advance HE was formed in March 2018, following the merger of the Equality Challenge Unit, the Higher Education Academy and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Our purpose is to advance the professional practice of higher education to improve outcomes for the benefit of students, staff and society. Advance HE has been created to be “of and for the sector” and is jointly owned by GuildHE and Universities UK. We are driven by the strategic needs of higher education. Through our passion for excellence we aim to create an inclusive culture that champions the continuous development of teaching, leadership and research. We use an evidence-based approach to identify what works, and develop practice-based solutions. Our vision is that the world-class reputation and standing of higher education is enhanced and recognised for transforming lives, enriching society and developing the economy for the better.

About London South Bank University (LSBU): LSBU is one of London’s largest and oldest universities. Since 1892, we have been providing vocationally-relevant, accredited and professionally recognised education which transforms lives, businesses and communities.