Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE)
Do you lead a team that works in a truly collaborative way, and has thereby had a demonstrably positive impact on teaching and learning share? If so could your team be a future Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) winner?
The CATE scheme is an external award administered by Advance HE. Introduced in 2016, the scheme highlights the key role that teamwork plays in higher education. Each year the University can nominate one team that clearly demonstrates how it has enabled a change in practice for colleagues and/or students at an institutional or discipline level. The scheme is co-ordinated internally by the Teaching Excellence team (via ITL) and Teaching and Learning Group (TLG). The University also provides significant support for potential nominees through the Teaching Excellence Team.
Each award recognises a team that has enabled a change in practice (including beyond their immediate academic or professional area).
CATE is an award for excellence in the collaborative approach of the team and is not an award for a specific project or initiative. Some CATE teams may present a defined ‘project’ as an example of their work, while others may not. ‘Collaboration’ is understood as a deep state of interdependence, beyond simply cooperating as a team, and successful claims should showcase practices that go beyond describing teamwork with others, with a focus on the team’s collaborative processes, activities.
All teams will be assessed on the evidence of the value, reach and impact of the practice presented in the nomination document in relation to the two CATE award criteria:
- Criterion 1: Excellence in the team’s collaborative approach Evidence of excellence in the team’s approach to working collaboratively, commensurate with their context and the opportunities afforded by it.
- Criterion 2: Excellence in the impact of collaborative working Evidence of the team having a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning, including beyond their immediate academic or professional area. Reviewers will be looking for evidence of reach, value and impact to be demonstrated in the evidence within the narrative presented.
Reach, Value and Impact are defined by Advance HE as:
| Value | Reach | Impact |
| The benefit derived for students and staff (which may take different forms). Value may include qualitative evidence such as a change in approach to learning among students or staff. For example, evidence may be provided about how the work being described has added value to the student learning experience or to teaching practice. Value may also relate to the quality of enhanced experiences and the meaningfulness of practices. Some nominees may also be working in settings where there are positive explicit ethical elements to their practice. | The scale of influence. Though ‘geographic’ reach may be important for some nominees, it is useful to consider other ways that a nominee can demonstrate reach. Some nominees may demonstrate reach at a departmental, faculty, institutional, national and/or global level, for example, but others might provide evidence of how their practice has reached different groups of students, individuals, staff teams and/or organisations (e.g. postgraduates, commuter students, students from minoritized ethnic groups, online learners, etc.). | The difference that has been made to policy, practice and/or student outcomes in an HE context as the result of an activity. The focus here is on explicit evidence of positive change taking place. Impact evidence can be both quantitative and qualitative, but it is important to show how the activities described have changed HE teaching practice and/or learning outcomes. |
Nomination process
Expressions of Interest in being the university’s nominated CATE team are considered in September each year. Submissions are evaluated by a panel chaired by the Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and the Student Experience and consisting of representation from each Faculty as well as Professional Services. Successful applicants then work intensively with the university's Teaching Excellence Awards Lead (TEAL) to develop a full claim for submission to Advance HE the following March.
- Team Leaders should please email their completed Expression of Interest (word document) to the Institute of Teaching and Learning
- Deadline: Thursday 16 April 2026, 6pm
The university would normally expect successful Team Leaders to hold, or be working towards, Senior or Principal Fellowship of AdvanceHE.
Expressions of Interest should set out an authentic narrative that clearly outlines the ethos, structures and ways of working that drive the team's outstanding collaborative approach, supported by a mixture of qualitative and quantitative evidence of the outstanding value, reach and impact of the team's practice over a sustained period.
- CATE Guidance from AdvanceHE
CATE pipeline programme
If you are considering nominating your team for a CATE award in the next three years, please complete this Expression of Interest form: Pipeline Programme Expression of Interest Form
You will then be contacted with information about our Pipeline Programme - a series of interactive workshops exploring the award criteria and process, starting in Spring 2026.
For further details about the CATE Scheme and institutional support available please contact Emma Sanders in the Teaching Excellence team.