Research Effectiveness Awards

The ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Awards celebrate impactful projects of the insights and analytics community that made a huge impact on the end-users.
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The Research Effectiveness Awards is now part of the global ESOMAR Awards and is called the Best Social Impact Research Award. Visit this page to read the new entry rules and submission requirements.

Celebrating insights' benefits for you

Correctly used insights and analytics produce extraordinary benefits for you and your organisation. The Research Effectiveness Awards, awarded once per year, celebrates your projects that have achieved remarkable impact on those who commissioned them and their beneficiaries.

Research Effectiveness Award

Who can enter?

  • We welcome submissions from users of insights and analytics.

  • We welcome submissions from all around the world and want to hear your story, particularly if it spotlights the value of research in these difficult times.

  • Joint entries are also accepted (insights & analytics user and the partner agency together). However, agency-only submissions will not be accepted.

  • The project you submit cannot be presented at our flagship annual event in the same year that it is submitted for the award.

How do you enter?

Your entry should be a written case study that details an innovative research piece that clearly showcases how the project contributed to business or societal success or change (maximum 2500 words).

Entry text should be uploaded online, and the submission should be very thorough, including not only the methodology but also the tangible results that are directly linked to the research.

What's the topic?

No fixed topic. The Research Effectiveness Award is open to users and buyers of insights and analytics in any market or field who are interested in sharing their story about the commercial or societal impact of their research investment (ROI).

What is the selection criteria?

The judges are looking to reward the submissions that most persuasively and thoroughly establish the link between research and performance.

  • Scale of task: How difficult is the challenge to undertake?

  • Strength of solution: How imaginative or impressive is the strategic, business, social or media solution?

  • Strength of proof: How convincingly and credibly does the submission establish the link between research and commercial or social performance? How is this measured?

  • New learning: Has the case taught us anything new about how research works or about how to use research?

  • Scale of effect (this should include concrete KPIs): How impressive is the return on investment either monetary or societal? Does it demonstrate how effective the research was in contributing to the success of business or a social issue?

  • Supporting Material: Additional documentation is not required for an entry. However, entrants are encouraged to upload creative material, charts, videos, or any other presentations in support of their written piece. These can help bring the project to life for the judges. Material can be uploaded as part of the submission process.

Past winners

Winners 2024

Research Effectiveness Award - Gold

Audio Alchemy

Alyson Sprague
Head of Ad Measurement at Wondery
Morgan Evans
Head of Display and Audio Ads Creative at Amazon Ads
Cyrus McCandless
Chief Science Officer at Sentient Decision Science

Research Effectiveness Award - Silver Winner

Closing the Empathy Gap with L'Oréal's Global Connect Program

Sandrine Morel
Consumer & Market Intelligence Director at L’Oreal
Delphine Vantomme
Partner at Human8

Research Effectiveness Award - Bronze Winner

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Ramasubramanian Narayanan
Director of Insights at PepsiCo
Shobha Prasad
Director at Drshti Strategic Research Services

Winners 2023

Research Effectiveness Award - Gold

Owning Inspiration

Daron Sharps
Researcher at Pinterest
Martyn Hill
Business Development Director at Firefish

Research Effectiveness Award - Silver Winner

An Innovative Approach to Employee Experience

Laurie Hibbs
GM - Relationships at Judo Bank
Garreth Chandler
Founder & CEO at The Evolved Group
Ben Griffith
Senior Research Consultant at The Evolved Group

Research Effectiveness Award - Bronze Winner

How an Agile Community Approach Supported the Transition from Uncle Ben's to Ben's Original

Katie Kaylor
Global CMI Director at Mars
Patricia van der Hart
Research Director at Human8

Winners 2022

Research Effectiveness Award - Gold Winner

Breaking the taboo on youth and porn

Henry Talbot
Senior Advisor at Research Lead at Te Mana Whaakatu – Classification Office
Jocelyn Rout
Co-Managing Director at Kantar Public

Research Effectiveness Award - Silver Winner

Less pain, less fear and a healthier future for our children: using Virtual Reality in blood drawing procedures

Oana Popa Rengle
Founder at Anamnesis
Andreea Bica
Marketing Research Assistant at Synevo

Research Effectiveness Award - Bronze Winner

How fusing choice modelling and virtual reality saved George Weston Foods $10m

Guy Hooper
Head of Category and Corporate Grocery Sales at Don Smallgoods at George Weston Foods
Chris Crook
Managing Partner at Nature
Paddy Cain
Partner at Nature

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