National award for our Planning and Data Insight team

Our Planning and Data Insight (PDI) team has won the award for Best Planning Collaboration at a Higher Education Institute at the national Higher Education Strategic Planners Association (HESPA) awards.

The award was received for the work of the Data Insight Advisory Group (DIAG); and the new infrastructure of performance indicators that have enabled us to embed responsive systems to understand and respond to data insights.

Professor Lorna Fox O’Mahony, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chair of DIAG, said: "We are delighted to receive this prestigious recognition for the innovative work of our Planning and Data Insight team. Their focus on supporting colleagues to understand performance and to take timely action in response to both lag and lead indicators has transformed the University’s ability to make progress on a range of important measures, including student satisfaction and graduate outcomes, increasing research power and reducing student to staff ratios."

Reflecting on the tremendous journey that the team have been on to get here Naomi Drinkwater, Head of Planning and Data Insight, said: "Over the past few years we have had been on quite the adventure with our data and it has culminated in this fantastic award.

"A big thank you to the PDI team and all members of the Data Action groups for all your effort to organise, create, and build the influence of the Data Insight Action Groups."

Essex beat off tough competition to be judged to have demonstrated innovation in this award category with 22 nominations received in total.

Connect with our Planning and Data Insight team

If you work at the University of Essex and want to know more about data insights and what is on the horizon for Essex? You can join the growing Data and Policy Digest community by emailing: pdi@essex.ac.uk