A paper that is having a seminal influence in classrooms across the globe has landed a Macquarie academic  a very prestigious UK accolade.

Distinguished Professor Anne Castles from the Department of Cognitive Sciences, along with two of her UK-based collaborators, have won this year’s Economic and Social Research Council Celebrating Impact Prize in the category of ‘Outstanding International Impact,’ based on their highly regarded 2018 paper about bringing the science of reading to reading instruction in classrooms around the world.

The paper, titled, Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert has had over 150,000 views and downloads since its release. The other two winners who were part of the research team were Professor Kathy Rastle of Royal Holloway, University of London and Professor Kate Nation of the University of Oxford.

^{Distinguished Professor Castles is Scientific Director of the Macquarie University Centre for Reading.}

The Celebrating Impact Prize, now in its eighth year, is an annual opportunity to recognise and celebrate the success of ESRC-funded researchers in achieving and enabling outstanding economic or societal impact from excellent research.

The team’s finalist nomination had received letters of endorsement from global and local organisations including The World Bank, Deans for Impact and NSW Department of Education.

ESRC Executive Chair Professor Jennifer Rubin says the winners have very clearly demonstrated the relevance and importance of their work to improving lives. 

“All of these outstanding researchers are already contributing to policy debates in their specialist areas and their influence will likely be felt for many years to come.”

The winners were formally celebrated in a virtual announcement on 12 November. All finalists had a film professionally made about their work and its impact, and the winners were awarded £10,000 ($18,000 AUD) for further research.