The 2023 ABP Biz Psych Cup – And The Winners Are. . . .!
Twelve weeks of intense work culminated in the virtual presentation of posters by the five shortlisted student teams participating in the final judging session of the 2023 ABP Biz Psych Cup.
Following great work by our fantastic judging panel, we are excited to announce that the joint winners of the competition are The University of the West of England (‘Brain Train’) and The University of East London (‘Innovative Solutions’). In third place was the University of Kent (‘Added Value’). The shortlisted teams included Kingston University and The University of Westminster. The judges praised the excellence of the submissions from all five teams.
This year, nine student teams participated in the competition, with high quality submissions also coming from the Universities of Arden, Leicester, Loughborough and The Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Previous winners:
Ten weeks of intense work and competition culminated last week in the virtual presentation of posters by the six student teams participating in the inaugural “ABP Biz Psych Cup”.
Following great work by our amazing judging panel, I am proud to announce that the winners of the competition are the University of East London (UEL – The Forward Thinkers) with the University of Kent (Kent Cogniscance) taking the runners up spot. The judges praised the quality of submissions from all of the teams as outstanding. (The remaining teams included Kingston University – The Invincibles, Loughborough University – Women of Wisdom, University of the West of England – The Four Horsewomen of the Psychologalypse and James Cook University Singapore – The Voyagers).
This competition showcases the best of the ABP. Designed and launched by Dr Dawn H Nicholson, ABP Board member and Head of University Accreditation, it brings together business and academia to give students exposure to real clients and experience of applying their psychology skills to solve real business challenges.
Four ABP corporate members (Sten10, Cerulean Learning & Development, Arup and NatWest Group) provided the challenges. UEL’s winning poster responded to Arup’s challenge, ‘What enables successful integration at a systemic level across organisations to successfully deliver projects within VUCA contexts?’ The challenge for the Kent team came from NatWest, ‘How can an organisation/individual recover trust once trust has failed and instil trust even when communicating a negative message?’
Judging was undertaken by representatives from the four corporate challengers, together with ABP Board Members Professor Alex Forsythe, (Chair of the ABP) and Steve Apps. Maire Kerrin and David Fairs from the ABP Advisory Board also formed part of the judging panel. The teams each prepared an APA-style ‘poster’ in response to the challenge and presented it to the judging panel in a virtual event.
The teams were mentored by ABP members, undertaking the role of ‘Pro Coach Angels’. Clodagh O’Reilly, Jenny Chou, Timothy St. Ather, Ellice Whyte, Larry Mayers and Deborah Barleggs worked with the teams to keep them focused on the business outcome and client recommendations of the challenge.
What is this initiative?
The Biz Psych Cup is a new student team competition the ABP launched this year.
Each university team was made up of 4 members – 2 undergraduate and 2 postgraduate students (excluding PhD students) – who worked together to provide business psychology research, advice and recommendations for action to resolve business challenges set by our corporate members.
The inaugural competition ran for 10 weeks with 6 great student teams from the Universities of Kingston, Loughborough, UEL, UWE, Kent and James Cook University (Singapore).
We had four amazing business challenges for our teams provided by our Association for Business Psychology (ABP) corporate members – huge thanks to Arup, Natwest, Cerulean L&D and Sten10 for supporting this.
Teams prepared a psychology ‘poster’ in the format of the American Psychological Association (APA).
For information about future competitions, please get in touch dawn.nicholson@theabp.org.uk