The winners were announced at a special event hosted by Sir Andrew Cubie, chair of the sparqs Trustee Board on Thursday 5 October , which also marked sparqs’ 20th birthday!

The 2023 awards reflected on developments in student engagement and partnership, not only in the past two years, but also, across the two decades of sparqs’ existence since their creation in 2003.

As a member of West’s Quality and Student Experience team, Robin was commended for her “remarkable” work in supporting the college’s students’ association. Robin has worked with course reps and at college board level, helping the students’ association to remodel their representative structures and providing vital continuity, expert training to reps, and in-depth reports for student officers and college management.

She is very active in the work of sparqs, and has contributed to many strands of work relating to the tertiary quality arrangements. Her nomination highlighted her as, “a mediator, ambassador and visionary.”

In a very high quality field where the judges found it extraordinarily difficult to pick a winner, judges praised the evidence of Robin’s internal and external impact and demonstration of strong values.

Robin said of her win,

“It was an incredible honour just to have been nominated. I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our students."