Edinburgh Napier University is in the running for three prizes at the 2023 Times Higher Education Awards.
Widely dubbed the ‘Oscars of higher education’, the THE Awards draw hundreds of entries from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and recognise the full range of academic and professional services.
No Scottish university has been shortlisted for more categories in this year's edition, which covers the 2021/22 academic year, with the University of Strathclyde also achieving three nods.
The winners will be announced at a celebration of the higher education sector in Liverpool this December, where ENU will be hoping for success in the three categories below.
Most Innovative Teacher of the Year
Professor Bill Buchanan OBE
Bill’s main teaching focuses on cybersecurity and cryptography and, for this, he is the sole author of one of the most extensive cryptography sites, which is used by his own students and many others around the world.
Overall, Bill tries to explain complex areas of cryptography in an engaging and practical way, 
while covering core academic principles. He also uses many methods to engage students, including video presentations and fun challenges. Bill was the co-creator of the Christmas Schools Cyber Lecture in Scotland, which he still leads every year.
Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership
Lab Plastics Recycling Project
Led by Lisa McMillan (pictured) and Jo Brown from the School of Applied Sciences, The Edinburgh Napier University Lab Plastics Recycling Project is a pioneering recycling method for previously contaminated lab plastics. To date, over 3,200kg of plastic has been re-routed from general waste to dry mixed recycling. To our knowledge, the scope and extent of this project represents a unique environmental leadership initiative that has led to a paradigm shift across the higher education sector and beyond.
Sharing their experiences and motivating others is a key aspect of Lisa and Jo’s work, and interest in their plastics recycling method has grown to include laboratories at King’s College London, the Institute for Cancer Research and the National Oceanography Centre, in addition to numerous other organisations across the UK. Lisa and Jo are determined to influence the development of the necessary markets, infrastructure and global health and safety policies to stop the broad-scale incineration of lab plastics and safely introduce them to a circular economy.
Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year
The Virtualised Security Operations Centre
Within the School of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment’s cybersecurity programmes, many graduates go into roles within SOCs (Security Operation Centres). These are places that integrate alerts from across an organisation and feed them into a centralised data infrastructure. Over the past 12 years, academics built a novel cloud-based infrastructure (VSOC) that mirrors real-life cybersecurity security environments.
Over 2021/2022, the Information Services (IS) team in the University scaled this virtualised environment to support improved levels of resilience, security and availability, and linked it to three physical spaces that simulate SOC environments. The successful knowledge transfer between academics and IS has provided the foundation in providing cybersecurity education to users across the world, and in supporting new areas of teaching.