A project revealing the social and emotional impact of flooding earned Lancaster University recognition in a top research council award.

The Hull Floods Project Team, which was led by Dr Will Medd, received an award for Outstanding Impact in Public Policy, which was collected on the night by Dr Rebecca Whittle, Dr Marion Walker, Dr Hugh Deeming and Dr Maggie Mort.

The public policy prize team’s research project examined the aftermath of flooding in Hull. The team has transformed policymakers’ understanding and management of the human impacts of flood recovery.

Using methods inspired by a study of community recovery from the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease disaster, led by Maggie Mort, the team organised 45 community diarists and regular community meetings to record the long-term recovery process, which many people felt was more traumatic than the flood itself. This was supplemented by a ‘sister’ project which explored children and young people’s recovery from the floods.

The team liaised at Cabinet-level and inspired a lasting collaboration between the diarists, politicians and stakeholders to inform policy going forwards. They also produced training materials to improve understanding of the recovery process.

Dr Will Medd, who led the projects, said: “This was a fantastic team effort which shows what can be done when researchers are enabled to work collaboratively and creatively with stakeholders and the public. As a team, we believe passionately that research is a collective endeavour and it’s great to see the ESRC supporting this approach to impact.”

The wider project team comprised: Maggie Mort, Gordon Walker, Nigel Watson and Elham Kashefi (Lancaster University), Clare Twigger-Ross (Collingwood Environmental Planning), Sue Tapsell (Middlesex University), Jo Moran-Ellis and Kate Burningham (University of Surrey).