ADR UK Recognition Awards

With so much great work going on across the ADR UK partnership, these awards recognise the valuable contributions of teams and individuals.

This year there are five award categories. Shortlisted nominations were judged by at least two directors. You can find all the nominees, winners (and those given a special mention!) below, following their announcement at the ADR UK Partnership Meeting on the 14 May 2026.

Judges reflected that all nominations were extremely strong this year and showcased the innovation, collaboration and hard work that has taken place across the partnership.

Congratulations to all those who were nominated and to our winners!

ADR UK Awards 2026: The results!

Most innovative project

WINNER: Synthetic Data Working Group (Cross Partnership) — synthetic data framework
SPECIAL MENTION: ECHILD team — linked child dataset
Natasha Kong — TRE service redesign
Steve Friend — assessor directory system
SRS PASS team (ONS) — application system redesign

Outstanding teamwork

WINNER: ADR UK Strategic Hub (PMO Team) — gateway review success
SPECIAL MENTION: SRS Statistical Support Team (ONS) — service recovery transformation
SPECIAL MENTION: Policy Engagement Team (ADR Wales) — policy engagement model
SRS Engagement team — comms excellence delivery
Healthy Homes Healthy Kids — child health research
SCADR Administration & Comms Team — network coordination excellence
ONS SRS Analytical Impact & User Engagement teams — research impact communications
Rhodri Johnson — team support leadership

Cross-partnership working

WINNER: ADR UK Conference Organising Team (ADR Wales) — UK-wide conference delivery
SPECIAL MENTION: The Policing and Mental Health Distress project team (ADR Scotland) — policing system reform
SPECIAL MENTION: ADR Scotland - SCADR / Scottish Government / Public Health Scotland — adult social care collaboration
Lucy Griffiths / Community Catalyst: Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes — children research collaboration
Welsh Government & SAIL teams — data access partnership

Rising to a challenge (individual)

WINNER: Lauren Kerry — SRS transformation leadership
SPECIAL MENTION: Stephanie Lee — Datacise platform growth
SPECIAL MENTION: Umair Ali — veteran data analysis
Andrew Needham — RAPID dataset creation
Jason Powell-Bavester — team leadership continuity
Dr Silvia Behrens — project leadership impact and CYP champion
Dr Grace Bailey — children evidence review
Michelle Jamieson — NMC dataset enablement leadership
Professor Iain Atherton — community leadership support
Emma Yates — data ethics framework
Matt Evans — inclusive linkage solutions
Catherine Batchelder — Wales website rebrand
Bethany Lee-Shield — resilience and advocacy
Stella Telford — data pipeline delivery

Rising to a challenge (team)

WINNER: ADRC NI — strong public engagement model
SPECIAL MENTION: Community Catalyst: Children at Risk team — children's outcomes collaboration
Clare Jess & Carmel Colohan (ADR NI) — comms under pressure
Service Improvement team (ONS) — critical SRS improvements
Private Pensions project — dataset delivery and resilience
DALfR + Skills team (ADR Wales) — policy evidence delivery
Data Curation team (ONS) — TRE transition delivery
Strategic Hub Communications and Engagement team — microsite/brand rapid rollout
NISRA — education dataset delivery
Teams at RDS, Scottish Government, and NRS — dataset linkage improvement

More about the award categories:

Most innovative project: Nominations should explain why the project was innovative, and what benefit this brought to the project.
Outstanding teamwork: Nominations should explain why the collaborative working of the whole team meant that the outcome was greater than the sum of the parts.
Cross-partnership working: Nominations should describe how working across the partnership delivered something better than would have been possible by working within just one part of the partnership (ADR Scotland, Wales, NI or England), or within one organisation.
Rising to a challenge (individual): Nominations should be for an individual that has risen to a challenge, stepped up to complete a piece of work, or championed ADR UK’s mission and ethics.
Rising to a challenge (team): Nominations should be for a team or project that has demonstrated the power of administrative data or our partnership approach in addressing a major societal challenge, perhaps within a complex or shifting landscape.