The HESPA awards are an annual celebration of the work of our members and our sector. The awards aim to highlight excellence, innovation and dedication, posing an opportunity to support the professionalisation and recognition of strategic planners, while motivating colleagues and boosting morale.
The Awards are open to GOLD members of HESPA. You can nominate either yourself or your team, or other individuals and other teams, from either inside or outside your own institution. The nomination should be seconded by a Director of Planning or equivalent senior person, from either your own or another institution. Please note, the individual/team may be contacted to let them know they have been nominated for an award unless you ask us not to notify them.
Nomination forms will be available here in September each year with a closing date in December. Award winners are announced in February at an awards dinner during our annual conference.
The categories for awards may change each year but in 2025 they were as follows:
Tell us a story about a project or piece of work in which data has been used to make a real difference to your university and/or its stakeholders.
Tell us how the journey unfolded; how was the data identified, prepared and presented to support decision making and influence change that supports a strategy. This could be developing a data system that has helped identify at-risk students or has led to savings in operating costs.
We’re open to your ideas. Please, tell us a story!
Showcase a project or initiative that demonstrates a creative and groundbreaking approach to navigating complex and changing landscapes.
This could be anything from initiating new ways of engaging remote-working teams to utilising a novel horizon scanning project to support the development of a long-term strategy.
It can be technical, people-orientated, systems-based… anything goes for this, but it has to be new and exciting.
Can you demonstrate a highly integrated and collaborative approach to strategic planning, where a team or individual has worked with multiple stakeholders to drive a strategy forward, pulling information and activities together across teams or the institution?
This could be related to institutional strategy or other strategies e.g. Data, Risk, EDI, etc. The nomination should demonstrate cross-institutional engagement with different partners and functions.
In memory of an excellent planner and treasured colleague, the Paul Youngson Award this year is for an individual who has made a valuable contribution to project or piece of work related to one or more of the many facets of strategy and planning. Do you have a team member who has gone above and beyond to make a real difference to the success of your team or a particular project? We want to hear about them.
You can read all about our wonderful winners from previous awards below.
