Our World in Data has been celebrated for its work on the global COVID-19 pandemic, receiving one of The Oxford Trust’s Covid Innovation Heroes Awards for­ 2021, part of the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire’s Covid Heroes programme.

The Awards recognise the role that Oxfordshire has played, and continues to play, nationally and internationally in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and celebrate the outstanding innovation contributions towards addressing the challenges brought by the pandemic.

The award recipients were Oxfordshire-based companies and organisations that have risen to the challenge of the pandemic and carried out extraordinary work that has been recognised the world over. The recipients were: Our World in Data, the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, Oxford Biomedica, OxVent and Oxford Nanopore Technologies.

Our World In Data is the flagship output of the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, in partnership with Oxford-based non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab. The aim is to show, through the visualisation of empirical data, how health, education, poverty, violence, hunger and environmental conditions are changing over time, across the world and by doing so to make the knowledge on the big problems accessible and understandable. Since the start of the pandemic it now collates global and country-by-country data on vital COVID-19 metrics including testing, vaccination rates, confirmed cases, deaths, hospitalisations, and policy responses.

Our World in Data received the Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding Award for helping people across the world see, and more importantly understand, critical pandemic data.

Dr Max Roser, founder, Our World in Data said: “We’re really pleased to receive a Covid Innovation Heroes award. Our World in Data has built and maintains the global database on COVID-19 testing and the leading global database on vaccinations. Over the course of the pandemic, it has had more than 150 million users and in 2020 its rate of academic citations was above 15 per day. It’s great that we can do this work in Oxford and be recognised here too.”

Imam Monawar Hussain, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire said: “A focus of my time as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire is to honour those that have played an important role in the county’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are here to celebrate some outstanding innovation contributions in the fight against COVID-19 – our Covid Innovation Heroes. These Awards are being presented to individuals but represent the work of the teams that have come together in different ways to help save millions of lives. We thank you all for your incredible endeavours. You have shown us hope and heroism. We are proud that all this amazing work has gone on in Oxford and has been recognized the world over.”

The Awards were selected by the boards of The Oxford Trust and Venturefest Oxford, sponsored by Barclays, and presented by the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, Imam Monawar Hussain DL MBE FRSA, at Venturefest Oxford, held at Harwell Science & Innovation Campus, on Thursday 25th November 2021.