Three Trinity students win global prizes at Undergraduate Awards

Seven regional winners also hail from Trinity

  

Three global and seven regional winners come from Trinity at this year’s Undergraduate Awards, the world’s largest academic awards programme, which received a record number of 6,432 submissions this year.

Trinity was the only Irish college to receive global awards at this year’s ceremony. In addition, 47 Trinity students were given the distinction of highly commended, with their work being identified as among the best undergraduate coursework globally.

In an audience of 150 undergraduate students, 57 students were from Trinity. Trinity was one of 299 institutions to submit, hailing from 47 countries.

The awards are spread out over various categories. This year, the top five largest categories at the awards were literature, psychology, politics and international relations, history, and social sciences: anthropology and cultural studies. Literature was also the most diverse category with submissions from 92 different institutions from seven regions.

The regional awards section is broken into seven sections. Irish institutions are not included in the Europe category, but are placed in a category of their own, which enompasses both the Republic and the North. 18 entrants won awards, with seven from Trinity. Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) won the second-highest number of awards in the Irish regional section, receiving two prizes.

The regional winners were the highest-performing highly commended entrant from their region.The other categories of the regional section are Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and US and Canada.

Jamie Sugrue, one of Trinity’s global award winners, received an award for his work in the field of life science. Speaking to Trinity News about the award, Sugrue said the awards ceremony was “ really inspiring and gave me the opportunity to meet so many amazing young people.” He added that as he has just started his PhD, “a boost like this is exactly what’s needed during a relatively tough transition period!”

Under the category of music, film and theatre, Conor Brennan also won a global award, as did philosophy student Tadgh Healy.

Students have to submit their work, which can include academic papers and research, as well as visual arts portfolios, to be assessed by judges of the programme. The programme is open to penultimate and final year undergraduate students in a degree course, as well as those who graduated last year.

In 2016 there were three global award winners from Trinity also, while in 2015, one overall winner came from the college.

Aisling Grace

Aisling Grace was the Editor-in-Chief of the 66th Volume of Trinity News. She was also formerly Online Editor and Deputy News Editor.