15 October 2024

UCAS crowned Innovator of the Year at glittering awards at Stationer’s Hall

The winners of the Innovation Excellence Awards have been announced at a packed ceremony and lunch at the historic Stationer’s Hall in London.

Special guest, Vint Cerf – widely regarded as one of the fathers of the internet – presented UCAS with the coveted top prize of Innovator of the Year.

The awards showcase the extraordinary range of innovations taking place across the UK’s content and communications industries.  This year the judges looked closely at how brands are performing when it comes sustainability and introduced a new category – Education Technology – to acknowledge the increasing contribution this area is making to the whole industry.

Through the awards, the Stationers’ Company recognises the key role the Communications and Content industries play in the UK economy, highlights outstanding innovation in the sector and offers the opportunity to share best practice.

Some of the communications and content industry’s big hitters came together to celebrate this year’s winners, who were:

• Business Process – Epic Print Ltd for Cupround
• Communications, including Marketing – Barley Communications for Purpose Plus
• Customer Experience – Metaverse Learning Ltd for Metaverse Learning Educational Progams
• Educational Technology – UCAS for Discover Your Choices
• Product Design – Kolbus UK Ltd for AutoBox BX Motion
• Start Up – Perlego for Perlego
• Innovator of the Year – UCAS for Discover Your Choices

Judges reviewed a rigorous set of criteria, including how the innovations improve customer experience, how the innovation meets an unmet need in the market, strength of customer response and scalability for start-ups.

Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google and Honorary Freeman & Liveryman of the Stationers’ Company said:

“Innovation is vital to problem solving, which in my view, is vital to a successful society.  In part, it is a function of historical knowledge – what has worked and what has not worked – but it is also out there on the edge of chaos, where we don’t really have any answers and we need data even to begin to imagine exactly what’s going on, which leads to theory, which leads them to engineering, which might lead to an important innovation.”

Vida Barr-Jones and Kate Howell, the awards co-chairs said:  

“The Innovation Excellence Awards celebrate the best of the Content and Communications industry in the UK today. Innovation is distinct from invention, as it does not necessarily entail the creation of something entirely new. Instead, it focuses on introducing novel ideas or enhancing existing ones to meet the needs of customers, industry demands, and societal changes.

Innovation is a vital means for organisations to remain relevant, competitive, and responsive in their respective industries and we are here to celebrate it.

Huge congratulations to all our winners - they should be very proud of themselves.”

1. Full list of winners:

Award for Business Process - Epic Print Ltd for Cupround

Only around one in 400 single-use drinks cups are currently recycled. Cupround is a project that aims to shift that ratio by getting used cups out of people’s homes and into the recycling system. The project is based on boxes, made from recycled single-use cups, which arrive in a flattened crash-lock format. Each box can fit up to 20 large cups, with a carry case enabling easy transport. The boxes can be collected from and returned to members of the National Cup Recycling Scheme, which include McDonalds, Costa Coffee, Pret A Manger and Caffe Nero.

Award for Communications, including Marketing – Barley Communications for Purpose Plus

In 2023, after becoming a certified B Corp, the social purpose communications agency Barley Communications launched its Purpose Plus proposition. This innovative approach to communications, based around the themes of people, clients and work, and the environment and wider world, helps charities, commercial businesses and public sector organisations engage and communicate with audiences on issues that matter.

Award for Customer Experience – Metaverse Learning Ltd for Metaverse Learning Educational Progams

Created in collaboration with education and industry partners, Metaverse Learning’s Education Programs are immersive learning tools that mine the potential of extended reality, including virtual reality, virtual environments and augmented reality. By stimulating multiple senses and enhancing memory retention and cognitive processing, they seek to grab students’ attention, keep them engaged in learning and support them through to success.

Award for Education Technology – UCAS for Discover Your Choices

This impressive collaboration between the UCAS admissions service and the careers education platform Springpod enables those with an account on the UCAS Hub to explore, interact with and sample university subjects, courses and work experience online before they apply. Aimed at 13-24 year-olds who are considering their options, it seeks to improve social mobility by removing barriers and widening access to higher education and the world of work, irrespective of background or location.

Award for Product Design – Kolbus UK Ltd for AutoBox BX Motion

Short-run corrugated box-making machines have been on the market for the past 10 years, but their effectiveness has been limited by the narrow scope of their capabilities. The Kolbus AutoBox BX Motion is capable of producing digitally printed, inline glued boxes, ranging from lightweight to heavy duty. Creating high-spec boxes in short run lengths without the need for expensive tooling and lengthy make-readies, it provides speed, simplicity and flexibility, with functions including digital print, die cutting and box gluing.

Award for Start Up – Perlego for Perlego

Perlego is a digital library that provides subscribers with access to over a million academic and professional e-books. It is the first and only platform in the publishing industry to aggregate books from the majority of global publishers under an unlimited, ‘all-you-can-read’ subscription. This helps break down barriers to affordability, geography and availability often associated with traditional publishing. The platform offers innovative learning tools, study guides and an AI research assistant.

INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR 2024 – UCAS FOR DISCOVER YOUR CHOICES

2. Photographs from the event can be downloaded here https://adrianpope.jalbum.net/IEA2024/ - photo credit Adrian Pope for The Stationers’ Company

3. A copy of the awards brochure can be viewed here 

https://bit.ly/IEA24