We have been shortlisted for BUCS Active Wellbeing Programme of the Year 2025!
What is the BUCS Active Wellbeing Award?
The BUCS (British University and College Sport) Active Wellbeing Programme of the Year Award celebrates a programme that has actively improved the provision for their students and/or staff, to increase their levels of active wellbeing with targeted delivery activation.
An insight to our nomination...
Project Active is a programme designed to engage inactive UCL staff and students in low-cost, low-commitment sport and physical activity. Established in 2016 to provide an offer outside of our club sport & gym provision, Project Active has evolved to encompass a range of bespoke targeted interventions with the overarching aim of reaching inactive and under-represented groups.
Our nomination largely focused on how we adjusted our programme design to engage postgraduate (PG) students as 56% of Postgraduate students at UCL said they wanted to be involved but weren’t. The work to improve Project Active has resulted in a significant increase in participants from 3686 in May 24 to 4095 in May 25 with 64% of all participants stating they were completely inactive or irregularly active (under 149 minutes a week) when they first engaged with the programme.
Our Project Active ‘Learn to…’ courses, which were created for beginners also featured in our nomination. The 6-week blocks of structured coached activity have been a huge success engaging 245 students across the 24/25 academic year. One student progressed from our Women’s-only learn to swim programme through to gaining the confidence to sign up to The UCL Charity Swimathon completing her first 50m length in the Olympic Aquatic Centre Pool! Through using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS) we identified that 62% of participants reported improved wellbeing on completion of a Project Active Learn to… programme.
Next Stage...
We are up against 'Daily Mile Challenge by Northumbria University' and 'Empower by University of Nottingham'.
The winner of the award will be announced on Thursday 17 July at the annual BUCS conference taking place at the University of Hull.
Thank you to everyone who has participated, volunteered and supported Project Active. We are beyond excited to be shortlisted for this award! Wish us luck!
