Outstanding Contribution Awards

Nominations have now closed.

What is it?

The Outstanding Contribution to Peer Support Awards (OCAs) are given to individuals or small groups who have not only delivered in their role but gone above and beyond expectations in their aim of providing peer-led support.

How to submit 

You can submit your nomination via this form. You will be asked to attach your additional evidence at the end of the online form. Please make sure you are logged into your university account on the same browser that you are opening and submitting the form on.

If the form continues to not work, email PeerSupport@manchester.ac.uk and we'll send you over a Microsoft Word form to fill in.

Who is eligible for the award?

All students and staff involved with any Peer-led activity across the University of Manchester are eligible for entry. This includes, but is not limited to PASS and Peer Mentoring.

We would encourage nominations to focus on a single individual; however, nominations for small groups are accepted. If you are looking to nominate a larger group (3+ people) consider one of the Outstanding Scheme Awards instead.

What is the nomination process?

You cannot nominate yourself for this award. In order for a nomination to be successful, it must...

• Have a nominator that is NOT the nominee
• Be supported by one additional piece of evidence (this can be an image, supporting statement etc...)

It is the nominator's responsibility to complete the form in full.

Criteria

Nominees will be judged against the following four updated criteria:

Support
Empowering students, to collaborate with other students, to embrace each transition of university life. Encouraging them to be the best they can be and, reassuring and sharing experiences at each stage. Have you been signposting to useful resources? Encouraging or empowering students to achieve their best? Ensuring that what you are delivering is in line with the student’s needs/requests? 

Development
Working on your scheme to add value with respect to time, innovation and impact through a number of different ways. Have you significantly contributed to your scheme, changing how it’s run for the better or creating new traditions? Have you facilitated a collaboration with a similar scheme? Have you developed as person or developed others? How so?

Engagement
Demonstrating a consistent and continuous commitment and enthusiasm for your scheme, including cascading the energy and enthusiasm to inspire engagement from others. Displaying intentional and sustained initiative-taking to improve the student experience. Have you been contributing to or leading engaging and informing debriefs? Have you been networking with other schemes to inform best practice? Have you been creating or supporting events in your scheme?

Inclusive Community
Actively trying to create an environment which is accessible to different students’ intersectional needs. These includes learning approaches, religious needs, disabilities, racial/ethnic differences and different sexual orientations. Have you injected variety and creativity into the support you offer? Have you built connections between students to be inclusive of one another? Perhaps you have arranged events in a way that is accessible to everyone?

For each of these areas, you are advised to give evidence (up to 200 words each) of why your nominee has achieved the criteria.

Additional Evidence

In addition to the written sections, you must submit at least one piece of additional evidence (photographs, word documents, videos, creative media, toolkit submissions, online links etc). This part of the nomination is used to highlight any additional reasons why you believe your nominee has been outstanding and will be taken into account during the judging process. Some ideas for things you can include (but anything and everything is great!) are shown below:

Summary for Celebration Event

As the final part of your nomination please submit a short summary to be read out at Celebration Event. This should be no more than 75 words and should showcase the work of the nominee without naming them initially.

What is the selection process?

Once the closing date for nominations has passed, the nominations will be vetted to ensure they reach the success criteria outlined above.

The awards will then be judged by a panel comprised of both staff and student coordinators from Peer Support and faculty representatives, in addition to a Teaching and Learning Adviser (Peer Support).

Each judge will review and score the nominations independently before the panel meets. Nominations will be judged against the criteria set out above.

The awards will be presented at the Annual Peer Support Celebration Event.

What if my nominee does not fit the criteria?

All nominees are judged against the four main criteria, so it is strongly advised that you complete the nomination form as normal. However, we are aware that there may be a very small number of exceptions where our model does not fit the nominee, i.e. if there has been a single outstanding occasion. If you believe that your nominee deserves to be nominated for an exceptional circumstance, please contact Peer Support on peersupport@manchester.ac.uk and we will be able to give you further advice.

Please note that you cannot then also submit a nomination for the same individual through the normal route. All nominees will be judged against each other, regardless of application route.

Nominations have now closed. Check back again next year for when nominations open for the 2024/25 academic year!