{"id":591,"date":"2025-09-09T10:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/?p=591"},"modified":"2025-09-09T10:15:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:15:59","slug":"cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations"},"content":{"rendered":"

University experts supporting cocoa farmers and\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>NHS<\/span>\u00a0have been nominated in two categories at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

An international collaboration\u00a0<\/span>led by Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom\u00a0Sizmur\u00a0to make cocoa production in Ghana more sustainable has been nominated for the Knowledge Exchange\/Transfer Initiative of the Year. Professor\u00a0Weizi\u00a0Li and Nicholas Berin Chan, from Henley Business School, have been nominated for Research Project of the Year<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>(<\/span>STEM prize<\/span>)<\/span>\u00a0for using artificial intelligence to develop a system to reduce missed NHS appointments.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0THE\u00a0Awards are the biggest celebration of UK and Irish higher education, recognising excellence across academia, professional services,\u00a0leadership\u00a0and management.<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Parveen Yaqoob, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, said: \u201cThese nominations\u00a0showcase\u00a0Reading’s commitment to research that makes a real difference to people’s lives. Our researchers are addressing some of today’s most pressing challenges and are\u00a0demonstrating\u00a0how universities can be a force for positive change both locally and globally.\u00a0It’s\u00a0fantastic to see this important work recognised at such a prestigious level.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom\u00a0Sizmur\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>collaboration<\/span><\/a>\u00a0with the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology saw them work with farmers to test the potential of compost made from cocoa pod husks to improve yields. For the 2024 season, they recorded an average yield increase of about 40 per cent with five tonnes per hectare compost application. The<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>project<\/span>\u00a0ran\u00a0<\/span>field-based collaborative workshops\u00a0<\/span>which\u00a0<\/span>resulted in training more than 1,000 farmers and extension agents. Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom Sizmur worked with\u00a0Dr Amos Quaye, Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana,\u00a0Dr Laura Atuah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and\u00a0Professor Dadson Awunyo-Vitor, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology on the collaboration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor\u00a0Weizi\u00a0Li<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Nicholas Berin Chan<\/span>\u00a0co-developed the first<\/span>\u00a0AI decision-support system<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the NHS with\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (RBFT) and analysed more than 500,000 appointments to assess\u00a0<\/span>the risk of\u00a0<\/span>patient non-attendance<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0based on individual risk factors<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0such as deprivation level and mental health issues. Staff then call high-risk patients, using AI-generated insights to guide conversations and deliver targeted support based on each patient\u2019s needs. The system has reduced high-risk non-attendance by 40 per cent, delivering an estimated \u00a3250,000 in cost savings.\u00a0Professor Weizi Li and Nicholas Berin Chan co-created the system with Eghosa Bazuaye, Toluwanimi Akinola, and Kiki\u00a0Kontra from the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.<\/span><\/p>\n

The winners will be announced at the\u00a0THE\u00a0Awards 2025 ceremony in Edinburgh on Thursday, 13 November 2025.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University experts supporting cocoa farmers and\u00a0the\u00a0NHS\u00a0have been nominated in two categories at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2025. An international collaboration\u00a0led by Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom\u00a0Sizmur\u00a0to make…Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"coauthors":[16],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"University experts supporting cocoa farmers and\u00a0the\u00a0NHS\u00a0have been nominated in two categories at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2025. An international collaboration\u00a0led by Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom\u00a0Sizmur\u00a0to make...Read More >\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Agrifood Futures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T09:05:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-09T09:15:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/352\/2025\/09\/THE-Awards.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"185\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kirsty Withers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kirsty Withers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/\",\"name\":\"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-09T09:05:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-09T09:15:59+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/285a556950f10a16f17d871662fcb641\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/\",\"name\":\"Agrifood Futures\",\"description\":\"Research leadership for global food system transformation\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/285a556950f10a16f17d871662fcb641\",\"name\":\"Kirsty Withers\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/70efd5dc018b68683bb46c8e61285a76\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cb7c2f009b37a5acb83f3dd384854b1a15622f05ba8dc6f0b87dc5082f8a74cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cb7c2f009b37a5acb83f3dd384854b1a15622f05ba8dc6f0b87dc5082f8a74cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kirsty Withers\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/author\/xg904013reading-ac-uk\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures","og_description":"University experts supporting cocoa farmers and\u00a0the\u00a0NHS\u00a0have been nominated in two categories at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2025. An international collaboration\u00a0led by Dr Andrew Daymond and Professor Tom\u00a0Sizmur\u00a0to make...Read More >","og_url":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/","og_site_name":"Agrifood Futures","article_published_time":"2025-09-09T09:05:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-09-09T09:15:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":320,"height":185,"url":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/352\/2025\/09\/THE-Awards.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Kirsty Withers","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kirsty Withers","Estimated reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/","url":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/","name":"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations - Agrifood Futures","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-09-09T09:05:16+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-09T09:15:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/285a556950f10a16f17d871662fcb641"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/cocoa-and-ai-projects-receive-the-awards-2025-nominations\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cocoa and AI projects receive THE Awards 2025 nominations"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#website","url":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/","name":"Agrifood Futures","description":"Research leadership for global food system transformation","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/285a556950f10a16f17d871662fcb641","name":"Kirsty Withers","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/70efd5dc018b68683bb46c8e61285a76","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cb7c2f009b37a5acb83f3dd384854b1a15622f05ba8dc6f0b87dc5082f8a74cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cb7c2f009b37a5acb83f3dd384854b1a15622f05ba8dc6f0b87dc5082f8a74cd?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kirsty Withers"},"url":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/author\/xg904013reading-ac-uk\/"}]}},"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/agrifood-futures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}