ANNUAL
REVIEW
2024

RESEARCH WINS

Arts and Humanities

• Co-Producing EDI Interventions for Virtual Production, with a £1m grant led by the School of Arts and Creative Technologies. 
• The REM@KE project, led by Dr Andrea Schiavio. The £6m project aims to bridge the gap between historic musical instruments and their replicas.
• The Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS), led by the Department of Archaeology. A £14m grant has been provided for the HSDS, which will be the first point of contact for researchers and other users to find UK organisations with facilities, equipment, reference collections and datasets.

Social Sciences

• The Beyond Compliance Consortium research, led by the York Law School and the Centre for Applied Human Rights. A £5m grant for the project, which places community experiences of armed conflict at the forefront to promote humanitarian protection and reduce civilian harm. 
• The Social Security UK: Devolution, Families, and Alternative Futures project, led by Professor Ruth Patrick. A £1.1m grant for the project, which will explore the extent of the devolution of social security within the UK and the realities, risks, and opportunities this poses for families with dependent children.
• Healthy Urban Places, led by Professor Laura Bojke. The partnership project, which has been awarded £8m, will look at how and why population health is affected by local environments - such as clean air - and its aim will be to directly influence decisions that improve local places for health.

Sciences

• The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), led by Professor Dan Watts. A £2.2m grant has been provided for the project. The EIC accelerator facility will be built at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. 
• The Smart Data Donation Service (SDDS), led by Professor David Zendle. A £7.6m grant for the SDDS, which focuses on addressing the significant gap in understanding digital lives.
• The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Research, supported by the University's Institute for Mental Health Research. The Institute has been instrumental in attracting the £11m funding.

Top photo: Students joined the Great York Walk to help raise funding for mental health research and initiatives
Quote: Professor Matt Matravers, Chair of the University’s Community Volunteering Committee

• Cost of living: Sabbatical Officers secured £1m in cost of living support for students, including £137,117 for the Emergency Accommodation Fund, and £45,649 in food vouchers. £11,000 was invested into a Student Pantry which gives students access to free, non-food related items, including tampons, shower gel, nappies and much more. 
• Sustainability: Based on student feedback, beef and lamb was removed from student union venues, leading to a reduction of 28,590 kg CO₂e.
• Volunteering stars: Students who have made outstanding contributions in the local area were celebrated at the Student Community and Volunteering Awards.
• Intern honours: Anna Burt, a 2nd Year Computer Science student, was named Intern of the Year for redesigning the website of local startup School Kitchen. And Poppy Fynes, studying for a PhD in Computer Science, earned Campus Intern of the Year for her work with the Library, Archives and Learning Services team, creating accessible digital resources for students.

• Proud achievement: International Development student and University of Sanctuary Scholar Joel Mordi won a prestigious Diana Legacy Award in recognition of his social action and humanitarian work.
• Sports stars: York enjoyed a huge victory at College Varsity to beat Durham and become 2024 champions.
• Join the party: The York Student's Union hosted more big campus events to welcome new students, including the performance of drag superstar Velma Celli at Live at York.
• Must be love: Love York Awards winners included Fedor Topolev-Soldunov for Volunteer of the Year.

Top photo: Supporting the York Pride Parade
Quote: Professor Charlie Jeffery, Vice-Chancellor and President

SUSTAINABILITY

• Sustainable vision: Formerly known as One Planet Week, Sustainability Week saw over 30 free events organised for staff, students and alumni to raise awareness about environmental and social issues.
• Green impact: The Sustainability at York Annual Progress Report was published, highlighting achievements from the academic year, including:
• 90kWp of additional solar panels were installed; 58% of main waste was suitably recycled; 6,500 IT-related items were recycled; 2,800 staff and students were reached through Green Impact at York.
• Over 200 staff and students were provided with Carbon Literacy training and Climate Fresk workshops.
• 13 University departments and 37 external partners were involved in York Environmental Sustainability Institute Fellows Scheme funded projects.

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

• Taking pride: Hundreds of students and staff supported York Pride, which included joining the York Pride Parade. 
• Pay gap progress: Our Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report highlighted a significant reduction in both our mean and median gender pay gaps.

DONOR AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT

• Community boost: In total, throughout the year, 2,498 alumni, 690 students and 10% of our staff made donations.
• Crisis support: The York Sanctuary Fund has created 13 Equal Access Scholarships, supported 12 Human Rights Defenders to participate in the Protective Fellowship Scheme, and supported one CARA academic. The fund has been used to help refugee students, alumni and at-risk academics from Gaza. So far we've supported a Palestinian MSc student and an online student with scholarships, as well as a PhD alumnus also affected by the crisis.
• Special day: Over £322,527 was raised on Giving Day 2024 from 733 donors. 

• Walking tall: Supporters clocked up a combined 2,750 miles during the Great York Walk and throughout York Marathon Month. 
• Club together: During York Challenge Week, over 1,400 donors raised £40,000 to support 15 sports clubs.
• Global network: More than 1,700 people from our global alumni community signed up to our events.
• Opportunity knocks: The University of Opportunity fund was launched and received a £1m legacy gift from Dr Allen Samuels. More than 500 student scholarships, awards and bursaries have been awarded.
• Research connections: Partners the Morrell Trust, the Lloyd's Bank Foundation, and The Legal Education Foundation, helped support the Born in Bradford Centre for Social Change and the Administrative Fairness Lab. 

ALUMNI WINNERS

• Nobel ambitions: Daron Acemoglu was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. Daron said: "I am deeply honored by this prize. It's been a long journey, and I always emphasize that it started at York, where I learned so much of the economics I've used throughout my career, and, even more importantly, I learned to value and love academic research."
• Author honoured: Samantha Harvey was named the winner of the Booker Prize for her novel Orbital.
• Alumni winners: The winners of the first York for Life Alumni Awards were announced. Categories included the Environmental Sustainability Champion Award and the Alumni Rising Star Award.