Sparks' award winners

Ruskin Module Spark Awards – celebrating the power of new perspectives  

ARU’s innovative and award-winning Ruskin Modules bring students together from different disciplines to creatively develop the capacity for critical reflection and reasoned argument, integrating the acquisition of graduate capitals with wider societal concerns and challenges.

In 2023/24 23 Ruskin Modules were delivered to more than 2,200 Level 5 students. 

These diverse modules encompass a huge range of complex, contemporary challenges, including modules such as: ‘AI and the Future: a threat to humanity?’, ‘What’s the real price tag on fashion?’ and ‘Do we own animals?’. All Ruskin Modules are linked by interdisciplinarity – bringing together different perspectives to create new ideas to respond to challenges. Students are invited to apply for a Spark Award to celebrate their Ruskin Module journey and to tell us more about how seeing the world, challenges, communities, or themselves from different perspectives has impacted them.

Students complete an application form detailing: 

  • The challenge that they looked at.  
  • Why this was a challenge for them.  
  • The course or disciplinary perspectives they considered in looking at this challenge.  
  • What they used from different disciplines. 
  • How they brought together the different course or disciplinary perspectives to reach a new understanding. 
  • How their thinking changed. 
  • The impact of these new perspectives on them.