FSE’s Callum Kidd becomes first person in UK to win prestigious award

21 Oct 2020

We are delighted to announce that Callum Kidd, Discipline Head of Education for Engineering and Project Management within the Faculty of Science and Engineering, has become the first person within the UK to receive a teaching excellence award from one of the world’s largest professional bodies.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the world’s leading not for profit membership association for the project management profession and each year they recognise individuals and published works that significantly advance concepts, knowledge and prefaces of project, programme and portfolio management through the PMI academic and research awards.

The award presentation was delivered as part of the online open week activities and was attended by over 120 students who are commencing their studies at Manchester. Making the award presentation was Heather Ramsey, Manager of Academic Programmes for the PMI in the East Coast of United States.

Speaking of the award Heather said:

“This award recognises and honours an individual faculty member for excellence in teaching project management, and for their strong commitment to improving and enhancing project management curricula in higher education. On behalf of the PMI we are happy to announce this year’s winner of the award goes to Callum Kidd.”

“Callum has been at the forefront of project management education for over 20 years at the University of Manchester. He has been a significant part of the success story of many highly innovative initiatives such as the ground-breaking project management professional development programme and the launch of the joint MS project management initiative with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His development of PM-PAL – the Peer Assisted Learning Project was also twice awarded funding from the Dean’s teaching and learning awards. In his new role as Discipline Head of Education for Engineering and Project Management he has the task of setting the longer term strategy for project management course delivery across the Faculty. It is my pleasure to honour the recipient of the 2020 PMI Linn Stuckenbruck Teaching Excellence Award. Please join me in congratulating Callum Kidd.”

On receiving the award, Callum added:

“I feel incredibly honoured and very humbled to have received this award. It is fantastic that PMI recognises the varied role of academics. Although there is an abundance of research awards, there are not that many awards globally that recognise teaching excellence and this acknowledgement demonstrates that professional bodies do value the fact that as educators we impact the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world every year.

“I would like to thank my colleagues at the University – nobody exists in isolation in academia and I have been lucky during my 20 years to have worked with some very talented and inspirational people who continue to drive forward all of the things that we are passionate about. This award is therefore also in recognition of what we have collectively achieved. Our success over the last 20 years has not only impacted Manchester but has had global influence and I sincerely believe that we have the next generation of academics within the University to progress our impact even further during a period of rapid change.”

“I feel a little guilty for receiving an award for doing something which I feel so passionate about. I think my colleagues would agree that if you are really passionate and engaged in your work then you don’t really see it as work, it becomes part of your ongoing passion. Thank you to PMI for the award and thank you to my colleagues who have helped us get to where we are.”