Birmingham Business School Student Impact Awards 2024

You can nominate yourself for UG Student of the Year, PG Student of the Year, Placement/Internship Student of the Year, and Graduate Student of the Year by referencing one (or more) of the five values below. These five categories serve as the judging criteria, so please consider this in your application.

Ten of the best nominations will be shortlisted by a judging panel for each of these awards and three overall winners will be chosen getting £500 each. The judging panel will then shortlist the remaining nominations in line with the values categories and assign a winner for each category, with the winners receiving £250. Students nominated who do not win will be included in the nominations in the value categories. Those shortlisted will be sent an invitation to attend and winners will be announced on the night.

You can use any experience from the past 12 months as evidence for your nomination, and we encourage you to reflect on your time at university. This could be work experience, part-time work, involvement in societies or sports teams, ambassador roles, personal projects or achievements or voluntary work in the community (as examples). If the experience was completed whilst you were a student at the University of Birmingham, it counts!

Your application should demonstrate your extra-curricular achievements in one (or more) of the five categories below. 

Innovation

Your inventive ideas or creative solutions have made a positive impact or improved processes in some format. You are happy to explore and experiment with innovative ideas, take on challenges with a positive attitude, and approach problems in a unique way. Looking at all avenues whether that be work experience, extra-curricular activities, or steps within your personal life – you are not afraid to take risks and think outside of the box.

Collaboration

You show collaboration in your studies, extracurricular activities, work experience, and lifestyle. You can demonstrate the ability to work collaboratively and communicate complex ideas to and with different and diverse audiences; sharing your ideas and skills to achieve a common goal to boost the productivity and creativity of a group of people.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I)

You have demonstrated outstanding dedication and commitment to promoting diversity and facilitating inclusion within your school community. You have shown leadership in advocating for marginalised groups, promoting awareness of diversity and promoting social justice. Criteria for this award may include evidence of involvement in activities that further the school and university’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as community outreach programs, societies, or extracurricular programmes which promote cultural awareness.

Social Impact and Responsibility

This recognises the outstanding commitment of executing business practices in a responsible and ethical manner. You can demonstrate your innovative or collaborative responsible business conduct, or work that has created a positive social impact on a group of people, or individuals. Criteria may include those who have started their own business or worked for another company, in work related to sustainability or community initiatives.

Ambition

You have demonstrated exceptional levels of ambition in pursuing goals in line with your own individual values. You have a ‘go getter’ attitude and look at ways to push boundaries and make an impact. This category celebrates those who have decided to look forward and take action to achieve their aspirations, regardless of obstacles faced.

Watch our short video for some top tips! 

Video transcript

All BBS students and graduates, both undergraduate and postgraduate, are eligible for the awards.

If you are a graduate, you need to have graduated in the past year from a Birmingham Business School programme.

The experience can be anything at all! We would love to see diverse experience being recognised in these awards.

It could be work you have done in a society, sports team or during work experience. It could be a project that you have worked on, an ambassador role or part-time work. It could also be a personal achievement, such as balancing your university work with caring responsibilities or volunteer work and giving back to the community.

The experience that you feature needs to have been completed in the past 12 months from date of submitting your nomination.

If you are a first-year student, you are also able to feature experience completed before you came to university if it is within the past 12 months.

If you are unsure on what you would like to feature in your nomination, please contact us at bbs-careers@contacts.bham.ac.uk 

Yes, if you are eligible! For example, if you have completed a placement year, you could nominate yourself for Placement/Internship Student of the Year. Then, if you had an additional achievement, you could also nominate yourself for Undergraduate Student of the Year.

We would advise that you use different evidence, although this is not essential.

Yes you can! Please ensure that the experience for this year’s nomination is from the past 12 months.

We would encourage you to highlight different types of experience to your past nomination.

Of course, please email bbs-careers@contacts.bham.ac.uk