The Bionow Awards honour those most deserving for their ingenuity and dedication, distinguishing them from their competitors and proving them worthy of recognition. HEN won in the Social Impact category, which recognises activities aimed at creating significant, positive societal changes by addressing a pressing and defined challenge.

Colleagues from Health Equity North and the Northern Health Science Alliance attended the award ceremony on Thursday, March 6, two days ahead of International Women’s Day.

Hannah Davies, Executive Director of Health Equity North, said: “I am absolutely thrilled that our work has been recognised in this way – awards such as these elevate our platform to raise awareness of the report findings and show how impactful this research has been. It’s crucial that we  highlight inequalities in as many  ways as we can so that we can work collectively towards solving them. 

“It is especially fitting that we collected this award just ahead of International Women’s Day. Women both nationally and internationally have suffered unacceptable inequalities because of their sex, and women in the North face more inequality than their counterparts in the rest of the country – experiencing lower healthy life expectancy, fewer qualifications, worse mental health, and are more likely to suffer domestic violence or to end up in the criminal justice system. The wider we can share our report findings, the more we can address these pressing disparities.

“I’d like to thank our Directors and member representatives, as well as the 40+ report authors who responded to the call to work together to expose the gendered inequalities that are prevalent within our regions. I’d also like to extend thanks to the politicians and policymakers who have backed this report report, including female northern Metro Mayors Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire and Kim McGuinness, Mayor of the North East as well as Jess Phillips MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls – all of whom have worked personally with us to tackle the challenges that our Woman of the North work has presented.”

Read more about the Bionow awards here.