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Showcase your planned or achieved impact for the chance to win £500!
The SGSSS Impact Competition aims to champion a culture of creating meaningful impact across the SGSSS student community and the wider public.
The competition is open to all Social Science PhD students across Scotland, no matter how your research is funded.
There are two categories, depending on your year of study
The application process for Impact Competition 2025 is online using SGSSS Apply. To apply for either the planned or achieved impact categories. There are two stages to the application process.
Successfully shortlisted candidates will be invited to the annual SGSSS Collaboration Showcase at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in May where the winners will be announced.
Please only submit an application if you are able to commit to participating in both stages of the application process.
Full details are available in the competition guidelines.
The SGSSS Impact Competition aims to champion a culture of creating meaningful impact across the SGSSS student community and to the wider public.
Following an exceptionally high standard of applications for Round 1 our review panel have chosen three Planned Impact and four Achieved Impact applicants to go through to the final of our Impact Competition 2026 and face the public vote to elect the winners of the competition.
Discover how our finalists are generating impact through their research and cast your vote below:
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2026 SGSSS Impact Competition.
The SGSSS Impact Competition celebrates “the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy”. PhD researchers submit examples of the impact that they have created, or plan to create, through their work.
The finalists created videos and posters which were put to a public vote and SGSSS received over 900 public votes to help us identify the winners. You can see the details of all the shortlisted candidates below.
The winners announced at our annual Collaboration and Impact Showcase event at the RSE, Edinburgh are:
Emma’s project “ Addressing workforce shortages in the care economy in rural and island areas of Scotland ” aims to generate evidence on how rural and island communities in Scotland understand, experience, and sustain their local care economies amid workforce pressures and demographic change.
Voters said: “This project tackles a critical, under‑researched policy challenge with clear real‑world consequences, using an inclusive, participatory approach”.
Elle’s work, “Success, hope and adulthood: A participatory action research study with young people with experience of care in Dumfries and Galloway”, has contributed to shifts in professional thinking and extends critical youth studies by deepening understanding of how marginalised young people live and negotiate transitions to adulthood. The participatory action research project worked with young people as co-researchers with power over how their stories were created and shared, critically analysing and challenging problematic discourse and system-led constructions of successful adulthood.
Voters said: “Elle’s study is extremely timely and relevant, and her methods relate to the inclusive nature of the topic. She speaks with a lot of passion about her topic area”.
The winners each receive a £500 prize which could support their ongoing impact. Huge congratulations to our winners, and to all the shortlisted candidates.
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