UKSG Innovation Award – Winners Announced!

Posted on November 1, 2019 in UK

We are delighted to announce the winners of the UKSG Innovation Award this year!

Working with the Society of Young Publishers and the New Librarians Professional Network the UKSG innovation award offers financial support to new professionals to develop ideas and proposals for the wider benefit of our sector.   For 2019/20 we have, following an open competition, offered 5 awards totalling £4,000.  These are divided between the publisher and librarian sectors with one award per sector to address issues around diversity.  Underpinning the awards are four key elements;

• To offer tangible support for new professionals in the scholarly communications sector
• To develop “start- up” ideas and concepts which offer a range of benefits to the community
• To demonstrate UKSG’s commitment to new professionals and innovation within our sector
• To increase and promote diversity in our sector

Our winners in 2019:

Publisher – General

Tony Xue – Stem Fellowship

Promotion and dissemination of “Rabbit Hole of Knowledge” tool to lower the barrier of entry into academic literature. The Rabbit Hole of Knowledge is a starting point to finding original scholarly publications and consequently, encourage students to engage with libraries as active learning spaces in which they can develop their own inquires and follow their own learning path.  Initial work will start in Canada through current institutional partners, the Toronto District School Board and New Brunswick School Board, with further conferences in pipeline

http://rabbitholeofknowledge.com/

Publisher – Diversity Award

Jointly awarded (2x £500)

Emily Bird – Taylor & Francis

Development of a scheme whereby young people from traditionally underrepresented groups are invited to learn about the sector, inviting all academic publishers to participate. Publishers would sponsor and host groups for a day of education and discussion around academic publishing, showcasing the different roles available and the skills needed in various entry-level role.

Sotiria Kal – UCL Publishing Graduate

A proposal to track and investigate the career trajectories of the BAME people entering BAME-only internship schemes, BAME-only writing prizes and the networks revolving around BAME in publishing which have been established.  This would include a standardized feedback procedure that could help the participating publishers to improve their introductory BAME schemes and, at the same time, understand their effectiveness towards change.

Librarian – General

Hannah Boroudjou/Claire Delahunty – London School of Economics

Establishment of a career development-focused network for early career librarians in the London area and South East. This network would be primarily focussed on providing career development opportunities to London and South East-based early career librarians by facilitating meetings between peers, the exploration of ideas and career paths and engagement with senior members of the profession. In the first year they intend to focus on establishing the network within the library community in London including a social media presence to engage potential members plus holding a certain number of events.

Librarian – Diversity Award

Jennifer Bayjoo – DILON (Diversity in Libraries of the North)

Development of an engagement plan with library schools to support a two-stage process of engagement, reaching out to emerging BAME library workers and seeking to educate the library student community.

DILON plans to create packs to send to the list of CILIP accredited courses, containing information about issues surrounding ethnic diversity in the profession and the resources available to them, including UKSG. DILON will also identify links with the library schools and local DILON members so that a BAME librarian can go in to a cohort and give a presentation, talk, or answer questions the students may have.