A Royal Holloway academic has been awarded an ‘Oscar of higher education’ for Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year at the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) Awards.

Professor Mark Brown, from the Department of Biological Sciences, was awarded for Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year at the awards ceremony in Liverpool on the 7 December.

In his work as a research supervisor, Professor Brown has successfully supervised 54 research students over 20 years and was described as an ’exceptional’ doctoral supervisor by the THE Awards.

Professor Brown has passionately pushed for students from less privileged backgrounds to pursue doctoral research.

This passion resulted in more than 50% of his PhD students becoming the first generation in their family to pursue an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, with women accounting for nearly 50% of his PhD students.

The THE Awards, often referred to as the ‘Oscars of higher education’, have been running since 2005, celebrating the year's most groundbreaking work across the higher education sector.

Nominations for the award were announced in September, with Royal Holloway’s StoryFutures, StoryTrails: The People's Metaverse, also being nominated for the Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences category.

Professor Mark Brown said the following: "I was overwhelmed and completely surprised - all the short-listed candidates were excellent.

"I feel hugely honoured, but also grateful to all my mentors and research students who helped me develop my supervisory skills."