School of Health & Wellbeing

In the UofG professional services excellence awards 2021, four individuals and two teams from IHW received awards.

Individual award winners

Irene O’Neill (Secretary, Mental Health and Wellbeing)

Irene was nominated for her crucial contribution to an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) Centre investigation of how families – particularly those at risk – coped at the height of the pandemic, transcribing a remarkable 42 qualitative interviews virtually in real time. Largely due to her very quick turnaround and the high quality of Irene’s work, the team were able to present a report to the Scottish Government in May 2020, showing a "tale of two lockdowns": some families coping well and others becoming more and more stressed. Irene also contributed to follow-up work on the development of a model for reducing parental stress and improving the social development of children by allowing small groups to meet and educate their children together, for which she personally coined the term "closed childcare clusters". Her work undoubtedly had an important positive impact on families during the pandemic, for which she has now been justly recognised by UofG. 

Jane Goodfellow (Dissemination and Information Officer, IHW Admin)

Jane was nominated for her contribution to equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives within IHW (including our invisible disabilities campaign), her commitment to enhancing our positive, welcoming culture (including the devising and building of a "belonging" webpage), and thoughtful, timely suggestions for improving communication and overall inclusiveness within the institute. 

Olga Utkina-Macaskill (Project Support Co-ordinator, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit)

Olga was nominated for administrative work that allowed several huge projects to get off the ground – coordinating bids to host the International Congress of Behavioural Medicine (one of the world’s leading health conferences) and for funding that will allow the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit to undertake crucial work in the area of healthy ageing, and providing support for an international research project (a smoking intervention trial known as ASSIST Global) involving teams in four different countries. Olga was praised by her team for her problem-solving skills, for always thinking ahead, and for her consistently supportive approach to colleagues, all of which she brought to bear on these important streams of work.

Victoria Ferguson (Administrative Assistant, Public Health)

Victoria was nominated for her tireless work in providing support to colleagues in the Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU), which has greatly facilitated and enhanced the unit's research activities as well as strengthened the partnership between MEIRU and University of Glasgow. 

Team award winners

IHW Total Research Management Team

Claire Burke (Project Co-ordinator)
David Innes (Project Co-ordinator)
Deirdre Kelliher (Project Co-ordinator)
Jonathan Balke (Research Support Assistant)
Louise Manson (Research Support Assistant)
Rebecca Stewart (Project Manager)

The TRM Team was nominated for providing exemplary support to PIs and research fellows during the pandemic and remote working, often under difficult conditions (including multiple short-scale funding deadlines related to COVID-19 research). Many grants were complex to cost, requiring liaison with researchers and research support teams in multiple settings. This needed not only research management skills but also excellent communication skills to gather the necessary information at pace. Of the 44 grant applications for which they provided support (with a total value of £44,831,054 million), 18 have been funded, two short-listed for funding, and 10 are under consideration. Members of the TRM were also praised for their exceptional degree of professionalism, their high level of commitment, and their excellent team work and collegiality. 

DClinPsy Student Support Team

Carol Lang (Administrator)
Lynsay Coulter (Administrator)
Pauline Rankin (Administrative Assistant)
Sophie Garden (Administrator)

The DClinPsy Student Support Team was nominated for its diligent, consistent and friendly service to trainees, external NHS training partners, and the programme team. This high quality support predates the pandemic but with the COVID-19 crisis and the rapid shift to digital delivery the team went the extra mile to solve complex problems under considerable time pressure. In particular, they put systems in place to ensure that our huge number of external lecturers were supported to switch from in person to remote training delivery, virtually overnight.

We warmly congratulate our award winners, thank the colleagues who took the time and trouble to put together nominations, and acknowledge the contributions and commitment of all IHW's professional services staff to the smooth running and important work of our institute.

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First published: 3 August 2021