Key details
Date
- 6 October 2025
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 4 minutes
The awards focus on celebrating the most visionary, inclusive and innovative RCA graduate projects, from augmented-reality headsets for firefighters to prosthetic hand technology.
Key details
Date
- 6 October 2025
Author
- RCA
Read time
- 4 minutes
The annual Helen Hamlyn Design Awards recognise creativity in people-centred, inclusive design across all disciplines of the College and celebrate the most visionary, inclusive and innovative RCA graduate projects.
The awards are organised by the RCA’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (HHCD) – a global leader in inclusive design, design thinking and creative leadership, endowed by the Helen Hamlyn Trust.
In 2025, four awards have been granted: the Helen Hamlyn Award for Creativity, the Snowdon Award for Disability, the Northumbrian Water Award for Inclusive Innovation, and the Clarion Futures Award for Inclusive Communities. Each winning project is awarded £2,000.
The Awards were presented during a Ceremony at the RCA’s Battersea Campus on 30 September 2025.
Helen Hamlyn Award for Creativity
Winning Project: EMBER by Dunni Fadeyi (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering 2025)
EMBER is an augmented-reality headset that provides clear, intuitive navigational guidance when a firefighter's sight is lost due to smoke. Developed in close collaboration with over ten operational firefighters, its design is a direct response to their needs. By projecting a simple AR path and creating a shared, real-time map for the entire team, EMBER drastically reduces cognitive load and enhances situational awareness. It is a tool designed not just for firefighters, but with them, to ensure they can always find their way.
“What stood out is Dunni’s highly creative, questioning, iterative process, involving firefighters in co-design workshops to make sure it met real operational needs. Her design solution is low-cost and intelligently works with existing gear, improving team coordination, safety, and ultimately saving lives.”
Director of Projects at the Helen Hamlyn Trust
Snowdon Award for Disability
Winning Project: Teneray by Zachary Berry (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering 2025)
Teneray translates prosthetic hand finger movement into tactile feedback on the forearm, restoring a sense of finger position for people with upper limb differences. This improves coordination in everyday tasks, reduces fatigue, and decreases prosthetic hand abandonment rates.
“I was so impressed by the potential impact of his prosthetic hand and really impressed by the inclusive principles rooted in its development. Not just the involvement of lived experience in product development so that it genuinely meets user need, but in the deliberate focus on a low-cost and retro-fittable solution that gives it best chance to get to market as a sustainable solution.”
Chief Executive at Snowdon Trust
Northumbrian Water Award for Inclusive Innovation
Winning Project: Care to Share? by Julie Plovgaard, Sara Gelfgren and Arya Ankale (MA Service Design 2025)
Care to Share explores the low uptake of Shared Parental Leave which the team discovered was due to a lack of awareness and policy complexity. The team’s intervention aims to normalise shared caregiving by making it a visible, accessible, and supported choice. The project reimagines how government services engage with families, helping parents make more informed, intentional decisions and empowering them to advocate for shared care from the very beginning.
“As an inclusive employer, Northumbrian Water recognises the importance of the Care to Share project which addresses the low uptake of the Shared Parental Leave policy due to lack of awareness and process complexities. The project adopted a “test and learn” approach and placed accessibility and inclusivity at the heart of the user journey in order to reimagine government parental leave support. We are excited to see what is next for Care to Share and hope to support the team as they continue their journey - congratulations to you all.”
Head of Corporate Affairs at Northumbrian Water Group
Clarion Futures Award for Inclusive Communities
Winning Project: Kitted for Culture by Lukman Ipese (MA Visual Communication 2025)
Kitted for Culture is a community-led design initiative rooted in Hackney Marshes that explores identity and the football shirt as a cultural artefact through sport, creativity, and participation. This interdisciplinary project combined graphic design, photography, and editorial storytelling, working with 25 young designers to create high-quality kits worn proudly by the young players in a community fashion show held on the Marshes.
“Clarion Futures selected ‘Kitted for Culture’ for the Inclusive Communities Award because it tackles cultural underrepresentation in sport through creativity, collaboration, and youth voice. By giving young people, the tools to design and express their identities through football, the project fostered belonging, pride, and visibility, showcasing how inclusive design can strengthen community and enable opportunity.”
Communities Manager, Clarion House Group
Helen Hamlyn Alumni Award
Each year, the Helen Hamlyn Alumni Award is presented to a former employee of the Centre who has gone on to champion Inclusive Design in the wider world.
This year, the Alumni Award went to Mikaela Patrick.
Mikaela combined working at the Centre with work as Researcher and Spatial Designer for INTERPRT working to document environmental crimes and campaigns for legal protection of the environment under international law. She also worked as Research Associate and Designer at Stema Health working on community-led solutions to improving health in low-resource settings.
In 2020 Mikaela joined the Global Disability Innovation Hub as Inclusive Design Researcher. She has subsequently been promoted to Senior Inclusive Design Researcher, Head of Inclusive Infrastructure and Climate and in 2024 Mikaela was appointed Head of Research and Delivery at GDI.
Helen Hamlyn Fixperts Award
Fixperts is a learning programme responding to our changing world by challenging students to create ingenious solutions for real persons, addressing problems related to age and ageing, disability, social change and sustainability.
The Helen Hamlyn Fixperts Award, now in its thirteenth year, is an acknowledgment of the incredible work from students around the world.
The winning project ‘Sophies Knife Guard’ was led by Fixperts Yuna Shum, Callum Smith, King Chow, Orpheas Kalavana Georgiou, Jadyn Foong and Jiayu Jin, all from Brunel University of London and supported by staff member Tom Higgs.
Fix Partner Sophie Brudenall, who is visually impaired, feels anxious using knives in the kitchen and often resorts to buying pre-cut fruit and veg - something she doesn’t like due to sustainability concerns. The Fixperts team designed a custom finger guard to help her feel secure and comfortable preparing food, and happily reduce her use of single-use plastics.'