CATE award for collaboration goes to GEP-affiliated team
Image credit: Advance HE
Award for team behind Genomics and Counselling Skills course recognises programme’s commitment to ‘working across barriers’
The Generation Genome Education Team, which is supported by NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme (GEP), has won this year’s Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) for its work in developing and running the Genomics and Counselling Skills postgraduate training course. The annual award, from the charity Advance HE, recognises and celebrates collaborative work that has directly impacted and changed teaching and learning in higher education.
Assessing excellence
The team successfully met the award’s criteria for winning after careful deliberation by a panel of independent stakeholders and senior higher education representatives. The judgement criteria for hopeful teams included evidencing of excellence in their approach to working collaboratively, and evidencing they had a demonstrable impact of teaching and learning up to and beyond immediate academic and professional use.
Advance HE chief executive Alison Johns said: “Outstanding teaching is the result of knowledge, commitment, passion, energy and creativity. All of these 2024 winners demonstrate these attributes and put them into practice with excellent results.”
The benefit of collaboration
The winning team is a multi-disciplinary collaboration led by The University of the West of England. As well as the GEP, collaborators include several key national organisations and teams such as Macmillan Cancer Support, the British Heart Foundation, Genomics England and NHS England’s Genomics Unit. Together, they created the genomics course, which has run yearly since 2020.
GEP deputy director Alison Pope said: “This award recognises the commitment that NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme and Genomics Unit have to working across barriers in educating our workforce between health services, higher education institutions and public sector organisations, for the benefit of NHS patients.”
GEP education specialist and Generation Genome deputy team leader Melanie Watson added: “Taking a collaborative approach really helped us take full advantage of the opportunities for professional development and growth. At the end of the day, this was all for supporting healthcare professionals achieve success on their own learning journeys. I am so proud to be part of this award-winning team.”
Study on the course
Interested in applying for a place on the Genomics and Counselling Skills course in 2025? Sign up to GEP’s monthly newsletter, via our website, to receive an alert when applications open, as well as hear about other relevant genomics learning opportunities and events.
The CATE awards will take place in Edinburgh on Thursday 3 October 2024.
