If you haven’t heard of The WURI Awards before, here’s your chance to discover more.
Why are we talking about them? For the first time, it’s just been announced that Richmond American University London has won awards in three categories in The World University Rankings for Innovation (The WURI).
The WURI assesses higher education institutions’ contributions to industry and society, highlighting innovative education, research, and engagement with society. Using 13 categories, the ranking aims to spotlight higher education institutions that excel in their innovative approaches, thereby inspiring advancements across the academic and societal landscape.
How do the rankings work?
In 2024, The WURI team collected 2,916 cases of innovation from 1,072 global universities. Then they invited 156 university presidents worldwide to evaluate them based on three criteria: innovativeness, implementation, and impact. According to WURI, this year’s competition was particularly intense, with the number of innovative cases in 2024 more than doubling last year’s number of submissions.
Here are more details on our three awards.
Global Resilience
We were delighted to be awarded second place for this award out of many other global institutions. Our submission focused on the work of the University’s award-winning International Programme team, together with Jelena Pivovarova, course leader for our Russian Politics and History course, in assisting Ukrainian students continue with their studies after the invasion by Putin’s Russia. The range of free initiatives included room and board for refugee students over summer, organising online classes for students still in Ukraine (with our university partner Ukrainian American Concordia University), setting up full year tuition scholarships for students to come to London and working with our former housing partner iQ, and now also AES, in providing free accommodation.
Social Responsibility
Our submission for the Social Responsibility category, where we were awarded 54th place, focused on how our liberal arts approach fosters a sense of social responsibility and community among students. We highlighted that all of our undergraduates complete a service learning placement in the local community as part of their degree, which is something not generally offered by UK universities. The organisations helped by our students have been diverse, from Great Ormond Street Hospital to Oxfam, with projects including work with refugees and the homeless. A survey conducted among our students showed that service learning had a life-changing impact on them, with all of those questioned saying that doing work in the community provided them with transferable employability skills.
Student Support and Engagement
Our award-winning Student Affairs team was also recognised, gaining 86th place in The WURI awards for outstanding student support and engagement. Our award entry outlined how our motto, ‘Unity in Diversity’, has been central to the development of a supportive environment in which students can achieve their potential, going across all of our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The University’s ‘I am Richmond’ Campaign highlights student achievements particularly as they relate to the University community. This year, we have also made strides to enhance guidance on academic policies related to attendance, assessments, and mitigating circumstances. Students now also benefit from dyslexia screening and personalised ‘success plans’ to share learning style and reasonable adjustments with academic colleagues.
Explore the top 100 in 13 categories here.
