Cited as the ultimate champion  of high-potential undergraduates, and  often referred to as a “junior Nobel Prize”, The Undergraduate Awards is the world’s largest international academic awards programme, recognising excellent research and original work across the sciences, humanities, business and creative arts.

The Undergraduate Awards received a record number of submission in the 2016 programme, totalling a massive 5,514 papers from undergraduates in 244 institutions and 121 nationalities. Highly Commended Entrants are those who were ranked in the top 10% of submissions in each category.

The Highly Commended Entrants from James Cook University, Singapore were:

Glenn Kong - Psychology category

Kerry Leaver - Psychology category

Speaking about this year’s Winners and Highly Commended Entrants, CEO of The Undergraduate Awards Louise Hodgson said “This is a huge achievement for James Cook University and its students. UA received the highest number of submissions to date with only the best papers making it through the judging process - the competition was extremely tough and the Judges were astounded at the high quality of undergraduate research in the programme this year. Congratulations to this year’s successful entrants”.

Both Glenn and Kerry submitted work based on their 4^th year project in their psychology degrees. The work that was submitted was edited from their theses, to below 5,000 words, and students were allowed to improve on their work and take on board the comments and feedback they had previously received.

Professor Ken Greenwood, Dean of Research, commented that he was “excited to hear that the excellent work of these students had been recognised and judged to be in the top 10% of submissions in the psychology category world-wide”.  He congratulated the students and their supervisors; Dr Aoife McLoughlin supervised Glenn Kong and Dr Bridget McConnell supervised Kerry Leaver. “These awards indicate the strength of psychology at James Cook University, Singapore and the commitment of staff and students in the discipline to research and research training”, he said.

Highly Commended Entrants are now invited to meet their fellow awardees at the annual UA Global Summit, taking place in Dublin, Ireland on November 8th-11th. The attendees will be addressed by the likes of NASA Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, Shiza Shahid of the Malala Fund, MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abrahams, among many more speakers and facilitators.

About The Undergraduate Awards

The Undergraduate Awards is the world's largest international academic awards programme, recognising innovation and excellence at undergraduate level. Cited as the ultimate champion for high-potential undergraduates, UA identifies leading creative thinkers through their undergraduate coursework and provides top performing students with the support, network and opportunities they require to raise their profiles and further their career paths.