You only have until 8th June to submit entries to the 2018 Green Gowns Awards UK & Ireland.

The Green Gowns Awards recognise and celebrate the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by Universities and colleges. With sustainability moving up the agenda, the awards have become established as the most prestigious recognition of environmental best practice within the further and higher education sectors and they provide benchmarks for excellence and are respected by Government, funding councils, senior management, academics and students.

The 2018 Awards
This year there are new and revised categories with both of the revised Research with Impact categories summarised below. These revised categories recognise the importance and societal impact of research and development by tertiary education and the students within these institutions. 

Institution
This category recognises the importance and societal impact of research and development by tertiary education as a driver of sustainable development and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. As claims of impact from research and development can be difficult to judge, entries are sought which:

• Are about tangible improvements resulting from research & development, rather than the findings or quality of the research & development itself
• Can provide quantitative evidence of what those improvements and resulting sustainability benefits and impacts are. Outcomes linked to the Research Excellence Framework, if applicable, are required
• Can demonstrate a clear and unambiguous causal link between the research & development and improvements and benefits.
• Note that adoption or dissemination measures will not be considered sufficient evidence by themselves – there needs to be a further stage of demonstration that adoption or dissemination has actually produced results.

Possible activities include:

• Research and development leading to mitigation of environmental and wider sustainability-based impacts related to existing technology
• Research and development that has created new products with demonstrable superiority to existing ones with regard to sustainability
• Research that incorporates the above two, and other principles, as part of a Living Lab project that is successful in co-creating & co-implementing a transformation.
• Judges will be also interested in innovative approaches to better link academic research with industry need. Eligible entries can include both large-scale projects with major impacts as well as small-scale projects that provide tangible impacts in focused areas/technologies, or amongst specific target audiences. In line with the broader sustainability agenda, judges will be keen to see evidence on how the project links with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Student
This category recognises excellent student research that progress the field of sustainability and beneficially impacts on society.

Applicants should have completed a piece of sustainability-related research at undergraduate, master’s level or small research pieces as part of a PhD (not full PhD research), in any discipline, done at a further or higher education institution, assessed within the last calendar year, and scored a 2:1/60%/Merit or above**. The project could be a freestanding piece of work, a product of a Living Lab project or be completed in partnership with an on- or off-campus partner.

Examples include:

• The benefits of biodiversity initiatives on an organisation's premises;
• Community development, social inclusion or assisting disadvantaged people;
• Alternative ways of communicating sustainability messages;
• Potential new energy-efficient technologies;
• The impacts of alternative methods of trading;
• An evaluation of water-saving technology in a company;
• A resource-efficient engineering or architectural design.
• The focus of this award is the impact (actual or estimated) of the research. Judges will be looking for evidence of the project’s potential to strengthen at least one of the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social or economic as well as links to the Sustainable Development Goals.

For more information about these and other categories, and to make sure you don't miss the deadline, check out the Green Gowns website and enter today.