Community Gateway shortlisted for Professor Sir David Watson Award

Community Gateway has been shortlisted in a new international awards scheme hosted by the University of Brighton in memory of its former Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Watson for its work with the community of Grangetown.

The ‘Professor Sir David Watson Award for Community-University Partnerships’ recognises the combined efforts of community and university partners towards making a difference to the lives of people in their shared community. The scheme, the first of its kind, will reward achievements by community and university partners working together to build a healthier, just, and sustainable community.

Community Gateway, along with community partners Grangetown Community Action and the Grange Pavilion project, is committed to building a long-term partnership with residents of Grangetown to make the area an even better place to live by developing world class research, teaching and volunteering opportunities which respond to local needs.

Over the past three years the project has successfully launched award winning projects such as the Grangetown Youth Forum and developed long-standing and popular activity groups like the Run Grangetown running group that now has over 140 active community members regularly meeting up for runs. The project has also recently renovated the old Grangetown Bowls Pavilion and launched a community cafe 'The Hideout Coffee House' run by a local business man Moseem Suleman in a bid to bring residents together further in a friendly community space.

Mhairi McVicar, Project Lead said:

"We are delighted and honoured to be nominated for this award and are immensely proud of what Community Gateway, our partners and the residents of Grangetown have achieved in such a short time. We are looking forward to what the next five years of the project might bring and to making Grangetown an even better place!"

The award is supported by an international group of networks and leaders in the field including the Talloires Network, a global network of community-engaged universities that Sir David helped to build and lead, and Drs Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon, the UNESCO co-chairs for Community Based Research. Sponsors also include the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, University of Winchester and Engagement Australia which helps develop best practice university-community engagement in Australia.

Sir David, who died in February 2015, created the University of Brighton’s award-winning Community University Partnership Programme CUPP which has supported scores of partnership projects over the past 12 years. Each year hundreds of academics, students and community partners work together to produce benefits for the community whilst enriching teaching and research. CUPP now supports other universities in the UK and across the world to develop similar initiatives in their own contexts.

Individual donors to the award fund will select the winning application, to be announced in September.

The University of Brighton will be re-running the award in future years. To donate to the award fund, go to: Just giving David Watson Award

For more information on the Community Gateway project or to get involved please contact: communitygateway@cardiff.ac.uk