MRS President's Medal 2025 finalists announced
14 November 2025

The MRS President's Medal is awarded annually to an organisation or individual that has made an extraordinary contribution to research but does not have the institutional framework to be recognised by the standard MRS Awards programme.

This year’s finalists are:

Surfers Against Sewage Research Team, including Henry Swithinbank and Jacey Price for ‘The Ripple Effect: Citizen Science Report.’

Bathing water regulations in the UK are failing to project water users and must be urgently updated. This report draws on the efforts of citizens and local communities to highlight fundamental flaws in the way bathing waters in the UK are designed, tested and classified.

Key findings found that 77% of UK sites tested in 2024 failed minimum water quality standards. Current regulations only protect swimmers, excluding kayakers, surfers, and others. Testing is limited to summer, leaving most of the year unmonitored and missing pollution spikes. New threats, such as PFAS chemicals and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, are not included in tests. Disregarding samples during pollution events further distorts the true state of water quality.

Updating regulations is essential to protect public health, empower communities, and ensure water quality monitoring reflects real-world usage and risks. To read the full report visit https://www.sas.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/The-Ripple-Effect-SAS-Citizen-Science-Report-FINAL.pdf

Jake Puddle and Heather Rolfe, British Future and Jill Rutter, the Belong Network for ‘The State of Us: Community strength and cohesion in the UK.’

Drawing on a broad base of research, this report assesses the current context of community strength in the UK, exploring expert insights and public perceptions on what can address disconnection and help to build more connected communities. It looks at the views of the public and experienced stakeholders on how to foster social cohesion, seeking to understand what can help to build togetherness and common ground between people from different backgrounds, political perspectives, and generations.

The ‘State of Us,’ provides the most comprehensive evidence base of the challenges confronting communities across the UK. The Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion will use these insights to develop practical, long-term solutions for stronger, more connected communities.

To read the full report visit https://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-State-of-Us-report.15.7.25.pdf

Oriel Sullivan, Jonathn Gershuny and Juana Lamote de Grignon Perez, Centre for Time Use Research, Social Research Institute, University College London for their discussion paper ‘Time Use Diary Design for our Times: General Principles for Online Design.’

This paper outlines the guiding principles behind decades of time use diary design and introduces a digital, multi-field diary developed at the Centre for Time Use Research (CTUR). Unlike many online tools that simplify data collection at the cost of detail, this design replicates the comprehensive structure of the Harmonised European Time Use Survey (HETUS) while maintaining a user-friendly, visually intuitive interface.

The diary supports both self-completion and interviewer-assisted modes (CATI/CAPI), ensuring continuity with historical data and adaptability for diverse research needs. We demonstrate the design’s utility in estimating key policy-relevant metrics, including child-related time, ICT use, and behavioural risk for infectious disease transmission, highlighting its value for both research and policy in high- and low-income settings.

To read the full discussion paper visit https://escoe-website.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/07100625/ESCoE-DP-2025-07.pdf

Philip Mullen, Rachel Worsley, Ruth Stables, Jem Hai, Amelia Clayton, Lily Owens-Crossman and Isabella Pereira, The Young Foundation for ‘Sharing power, showing understanding. A call to tackle violence affecting young people, with young people.’

The Peer Action Collective (PAC) is a network driven by and for young people at risk of, or with, lived experience of violence. PAC gives young people a chance to make their communities safer and fairer through a programme of peer research and social action.

This report covers the second iteration of the programme, running from 2023 to 2025 and involving 10 community-based youth organisations across England and Wales, who employed young people as PAC Leads. These young people designed and delivered peer research and drew on their own lived experiences and peer insights to develop social action activities, supported by wider teams of young people in Changemaker roles.

Since 2023, and as of July 2025, 5,158 young people aged 10 to 25 engaged in different roles. The peer research comprised 273 interviews, 139 focus groups, and a non-probability survey with 1,510 participants, all taking place between January 2024 and July 2025. This report focuses on three themes: violence in context; power and understanding; mental health and wellbeing.

To read the full report please visit https://youngfoundation.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PAC-A4-REPORT-V4-ACCESSIBLE.pdf?x80482

The winner will be revealed at the MRS Awards in London on 1 December