GISRUK Prizes for UCL Geography Early Career Researchers

Abigail, a research student with the CDRC and UCL Geography, won the Best Early-Career Presentation Award, sponsored by Google, for her presentation on “An investigation of the impact and resilience of British high streets following the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions”. Her research creates a typology of resilience across Britain's high streets using hierarchical clustering with spatial constraints. The analysis incorporates a measure of the proportion of stores deemed as ‘essential’ by the British government during the numerous lockdown periods. Her work found that the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions made pre-existing vacancy trends worse, especially for those high streets struggling before the pandemic.

Abigail said: “I am so grateful to everyone who voted for me to win the award. I hope everyone enjoyed my presentation and could see the policy benefits of my research”.

Shunya, a PhD student also with CDRC and UCL Geography, won the CASA Prize for Best Spatial Analysis Paper, for his presentation on “Exploring the spatial disparities in gambling risk and vulnerability”. The prize, sponsored by CASA in memory of Sinesio Alves Junior, was awarded for Shunya's research exploring gambling risk and vulnerability. Gambling harm disrupts the health and wellbeing of individuals, as well as families, communities and societies around them. Despite the growing recognition that gambling harms are socially and geographically uneven in their impacts and how they occur, there is limited empirical knowledge about the factors underlying the disparities. Shunya's work quantitatively profiled a nationwide gambling survey using a series of small area geodemographic data. The results were synthesized to devise a composite indicator of gambling risk and vulnerability that can be mapped to provide new insights into public health strategies for tackling gambling harms more effectively.

_{Risk around Manchester}

Shunya said: "I was shocked when they called my name as the prize winner but am very much honoured and proud to have our work recognised. I am grateful to the CDRC team for all their continuous support. Winning the prize has definitely given me a motivational boost in developing my research further."