Nominations for a set of national awards celebrating high-achieving students who have overcome barriers to succeed in academia opened on the 30th January.
The Student Social Mobility Awards (SSMA) 2024 are accepting entries for their twenty-two accolades until the 22nd March.
Organised by social mobility charity upReach, they are spread across eighteen categories, with opportunities for students, graduates, employers and universities to each have their work breaking down barriers to success recognised.
It is the sixth annual edition of the annual awards, and the first time that students have been able to nominate themselves, with students also encouraged to nominate their peers.
UpReach encourages “Anyone who has excelled against the odds – volunteering for social causes, achieving high grades or receiving competitive job offers – despite coming from low-income or disadvantaged backgrounds” to throw their name into the mix.
In last year’s awards, Fiza Aleem from the University of Sheffield, hosted the SSMAs, after winning the Law Sector Award in 2022.
UpReach hopes Aleem’s success “will inspire more students from the University of Sheffield to share their excellent stories at the SSMAs this year”.
In the 2023 Awards, fourteen undergraduates won an honour out of over 175 students from 47 universities who were entered.
The presentation ceremony for this year’s winners will be held in London’s Mansion House on the 18th July.
Thomas Norris, 2022 and 2023 SSMA winner, and recent graduate of Leicester’s De Montfort University, talked of the impact winning had for him:
“It has inspired me to work on new ideas with such determination and personally it has given me the motivation to show the world what a northern autistic person from a low-income background can achieve.”
Students interested can put their names forward here.
