Community Impact - Celebrating our Research and Knowledge Exchange Awards 2025

First Prize: Dr Sarah Waite and Dr Alexandria Bradley

Dr Sarah Waite (in Leeds Law School) and Dr Alexandria Bradley (in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences) were nominated for their research on Women's Problem-Solving Courts (WPSCs), which bring together the judiciary, probation, and women's centres and aim to respond to the underlying causes of women's offending.

They said: "Our research explores if and how these emerging models of justice can better respond to the lives of women in the criminal legal system. We used courtroom ethnography and interviews with criminalised women, judiciary and probation staff to explore three WPSCs across Greater Manchester. Our report, Listening to Women, Learning for Justice, centred on women's experiences and how court processes, relationships, and environments can be made more supportive, empowering, and gender responsive."

Speaking about the impact of their research so far, Sarah and Alexandria said: "Our research has already led to changes across three courts in Greater Manchester, ensuring greater consistency in the magistrates' bench and improved support for women entering court spaces. Our findings have also helped shape the early development of a new model in Leeds to provide better alternatives to short custodial sentences for women. If this is successful, we will hold an implementation and design day on campus next year. Nationally, the work has provided an evidence base of women's voices, to inform the roll out of problem-solving courts for women. We're now aiming to develop a gender-responsive toolkit, to guide judicial and court-based practice."

On winning the award, Sarah and Alexandria added: "We feel genuinely privileged. It's a reflection of the trust placed in us by the women who shared their experiences and the practitioners who opened up their practice for reflection and learning. As researchers, it's rewarding to see our work contribute to real-world change and to ongoing conversations about gender-responsive justice. Being recognised in this way reinforces the importance of collaborative, community-engaged research that seeks to make a tangible difference for women accessing these courts."

Second Prize: The Responsible Recreation on National Nature Reserves Team (Carnegie School of Sport)

The team, Professor Kate Dashper, Dr Jase Wilson and Dr Jason King, have been working with Natural England to explore responsible outdoor recreation on England's national nature reserves (NNRs).

Kate explained: "These sites are protected areas of land designated for their nationally important habitats, species or geology. They are also usually spaces with public access rights and so offer valuable opportunities for recreation and connection to nature. Unfortunately, public access and nature conservation sometimes don't work well together so we have been working with Natural England, land managers, local communities and recreation user groups to try and identify ways to try and balance these competing uses. We are currently in the process of developing a toolkit for land managers, based on our research."

Reflecting on the positive impacts for the local communities, Kate added: "Our fieldwork has been conducted at six NNR sites and we hope the impacts of the work spread to other protected sites and green and blue spaces. We are trying to help land managers understand the importance of protected natural environments as sites for active recreation that are essential to mental and physical health and well-being, and to help the wider population feel more connected to - and then inclined to support - protecting nature.

"We were delighted to be shortlisted, and believe this work is really important for both the natural environment and for people's health and well-being."

Third Prize: Dr James McGrath (School of Humanities and Social Sciences)

Dr James McGrath was nominated for his research on autism, creativity and health, and his community work running a creative writing class for inpatients at the Becklin Centre, an NHS-run psychiatric unit in Leeds.

James reflected: "I work on various NHS Leeds/York Partnership steering committees and, in one meeting in early 2023, I was invited to read one of my poems, 'Mental Variations', which defamiliarizes uses of the word 'mental'. This poem led to an invitation to run a creative writing class at the Becklin Centre. Initially, the plan was to run three classes. These went so well that I have continued the weekly creative writing sessions for two and a half years, and have been made visiting Writer in Residence for the Becklin Centre."

Sharing the impact of the classes, James added: "The classes enable patients from different wards in a large hospital to meet together. In the summers, I supplement the writing class with a weekly reading session, 'The Listening Reading Group', for people of all reading abilities.

"In September 2023, the Becklin Creative Writing group launched its magazine, Bright Soaring Jays, which is distributed around NHS waiting rooms in the region, and service users are active in the editing process. In 2024, the writing group was shortlisted for the National Award for Positive Practices in Mental Health in the Acute In-Patient Care category and highly commended.

"I'm thrilled to be shortlisted for the Community Impact Award. However, the main achievement is that of the service users, through their commitment and generosity in sharing their writing and responding to each other's work. I hope to expand this model of writing and reading classes in hospitals, so that similar groups can be formed elsewhere within the NHS."