Ulster University has gained national recognition for demonstrating “the greatest social impact” in collaboration with Inspire Workplaces, a local social enterprise that is part of the charity, Inspire.
The university was one of 13 winners chosen from 800 nominations across the UK, in this year’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Best of the Best Awards 2020.
The winners were announced at a virtual awards ceremony on 9 September with approximately 500 guests in attendance.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is a partly government-funded programme to encourage collaboration between businesses and universities in the UK. Now in its 45th year, KTP creates hundreds of graduate jobs annually and delivers innovative solutions to societal problems.
This KTP collaboration aimed to create a web-based platform that offered access to mental health screening and support to employees of companies at risk of secondary traumatic stress.
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The work facilitated the development of the ‘Inspire Support Hub’ which exceeded its original brief, extending to the social enterprise’s wider remit of providing workplace wellbeing services to organisations across the UK and Ireland.
The anticipated reach of the Inspire Support Hub now has a potential end-user base of 800,000 lives.
The hub’s preventative approach aims to help keep employees safe by giving them 24/7 access to education and coping strategies to mitigate any mental health issues they may be experiencing.
The project is currently implementing live chat functionality and is working towards embedding video counselling, to help improve service accessibility, particularly for those living in rural areas.
Amanda Fullerton, Ulster University KTP Programme Manager said that “this KTP with Ulster University and Inspire Workplaces is totally deserving of this national award for greatest social impact."
She added that is demonstrates "how university experts from different research fields in computing and psychology can work in partnership with the right business partner to bring meaningful and effective mental health support to the workforce on an unprecedented scale with significant global traction.”
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Dr Raymond Bond from Ulster University’s academic team added: “Digital health interventions and tools are likely key solutions to providing support to people during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during social distancing and lockdown measures.
“A particular benefit to those who may prefer to use digital health tools is the fact that their interactions with a computer can be somewhat anonymous and may remove any stigma they may feel, but the tools may also be a steppingstone to face-face services.”
Dr Vicky Kell, Invest NI’s Director of Innovation, Research and Development said: “The KTP Programme is an integral part of Northern Ireland’s business ecosystem with over 650 NI companies already participating in the Programme with Queen’s University, Ulster University, the Further Education Colleges and CAFRE. The programme is invaluable to industry, graduates and institutions.
“Northern Ireland is outperforming other regions in the UK in the delivery of KTP, so it is no surprise that, across the six categories, five Northern Ireland companies have won awards at this year’s national KTP awards.”
KTN runs the KTP Best of the Best Awards as part of its delivery of the KTP programme for Innovate UK.
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For more information on KTPs at Ulster University contact: Amanda Fullerton, KTP Programme Manager: a.fullerton@ulster.ac.uk
