HEA names two UCD projects as winners of 2025 SATLE Impact Awards
14 January 2026
Two UCD projects have been named winners at this year’s (opens in a new window)SATLE Impact Awards, receiving national recognition for furthering teaching and learning in higher education.
Celebrating initiatives arising from schemes supported through Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) funding, the awards acknowledge that each recipient has demonstrate tangible benefits for students, staff, and institutions beyond their initial implementation.
Winning the ‘Academic Integrity’ category was the UCD project ‘Promoting a Culture of Academic Integrity in Unsupervised Assessment through Co-Design of Instructional Tools’.
While in ‘Interdisciplinary’, the project ‘(opens in a new window)FAIR Game – A Student-Created Academic Integrity Game’ was one of the category’s three winners.
This open resource presents over 140 real-world academic integrity and ethical dilemma scenarios co-created by students and staff. Designed for educators, trainers, and learners, it supports interactive discussions, gamified learning, and scenario-based teaching in ethics and integrity education across disciplines.
It was created by (opens in a new window)Assistant Professor Guerrino Macori, from the UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, and is available to educators through Creative Commons.
Announcing the winners, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) said this year’s awardees reflect key strategic priorities for teaching and learning in higher education, including digital transformation, academic integrity, education for sustainable development, and interdisciplinary collaboration, and had clear potential for sustainability, scalability, and wider sectoral adoption.
“High-quality teaching and learning is central to the strength of Ireland’s higher education system,” said Professor Marie Clarke, Chair of the HEA Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning Committee.
“The SATLE Impact Awards recognise initiatives that are delivering real impact for students and institutions, and demonstrate how sustained, strategic investment can strengthen academic practice, support student success, and contribute to a more resilient and forward-looking sector.”
Professor Leo Casey, Education Consultant and former Director of the Centre for Education and Lifelong Learning at the National College of Ireland, added: “Reviewing the submissions for this year’s SATLE Impact Awards highlighted the depth of thoughtful, evidence-informed work taking place across the sector.
“The projects selected for award were distinguished by a strong focus on evaluation, sustainability, and transferability beyond their home institutions, together with clear evidence of impact on teaching and learning practice.”
Each awardee will receive €25,000 in funding to support the continued development of their project, or to explore related avenues of research and practice.
Since 2022, more than €23 million has been allocated to the Irish higher education through SATLE to strengthen teaching and learning, supporting institutions to pilot, evaluate, and scale high-quality, evidence-based approaches that respond to the sector's priorities and learner needs.
By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations
To contact the UCD News & Content Team, email: newsdesk@ucd.ie
