The work of our Shared Education colleagues over more than a decade has been recognised by a Queen’s Anniversary Prize, part of the national honours system marking outstanding achievement by United Kingdom universities. Professors Joanne Hughes and Tony Gallagher attended a presentation event at Buckingham Palace last week, along with Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Greer (second right) and Pro-Chancellor Stephen Prenter (left).

Shared Education provides economic, social and educational benefits to children, schools and society through cross-denominational school collaboration. In 2007, Tony Gallagher established a pilot Shared Education programme with 12 schools working in collaborative networks. The programme has grown to more than 700 schools and over 60,000 pupils now involved in regular, shared classes with schools from different denominations.

Shared Education has made a considerable impact on Northern Ireland and beyond. Through its model of cross-sectoral school collaboration, using a strong academic research base, it has become a core pillar of education policy and practice in Northern Ireland and has been adopted by educators and policymakers in other divided cities and countries like Jerusalem, Beirut, Los Angles, Kosovo and North Macedonia.

The Director of our internationally recognised Centre for Shared Education, Joanne Hughes, commented on its work: 'The Centre for Shared Education was established in 2012 to promote shared education as a mechanism for delivering reconciliation and educational benefits to all children. This mission is delivered through research, programme delivery and education and training.  Its impact is being felt not only in Northern Ireland but across the world.'

Tony Gallagher said: 'The School of SSESW has always maintained strong and positive relations with schools in Northern Ireland and these established links provided the platform to develop Shared Education. This award is a tribute to the many hundreds of teachers and thousands of pupils who have helped make Shared Education work.’