The IMA is delighted to announce that Dr Alun Owen of Coventry University is the recipient of the IMA John Blake University Teaching Medal 2025.
The Medal was introduced in 2020 and named in honour of the late Professor John Blake in recognition of his passionate support of teaching and learning within the mathematical sciences in higher education.
Alun has been teaching statistics in higher education since 1991. In 2023, he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his pioneering work in the development of statistics support in higher education. Alun’s work, both across the UK and internationally, makes learning statistics more inclusive and accessible to all students. From Foundation to PhD, he has worked with students at every level of higher education, including those on specialist mathematical sciences courses and those users of statistics in a wide range of disciplines. Alun has a passion for teaching, believing that the learning of statistics should be accessible to all students, irrespective of their level of ability, subject specialism or barriers to learning that they may face. He has won several student-led teaching awards at Coventry University and at Loughborough University.
Since 2008, he has been at the forefront of developing statistics support as a field in its own right, leading the development and delivery of statistics support services through the work of sigma, a HEFCE-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). Alun has worked at both Coventry and Loughborough Universities, sigma’s two lead institutions, and been instrumental in developing the statistics support services that now exist. He is also a regular presenter at the annual CETL-MSOR conference, the UK’s premier mathematical sciences higher education teaching and learning conference.
Of particular note is his development of the open learning resource statstutor. It provides over 200 free, high-quality, peer-reviewed learning resources to staff and students across the world. Over the last five years, the site has received around 500 000 visits per year from 83 countries, with 70% of visits coming from outside the UK.
Since 2016, he has led the development of The Statistics Tutor’s Pocket Book Guide to Statistics Resources, providing a comprehensive list of resources for supporting learning in statistics, as recommended by colleagues within the sector. This has been downloaded over 1500 times, and he is now leading a group from several universities across the UK to update the guide.
After the CETL funding ceased in 2016, he established a Special Interest Group (SIG) in Statistics Support under the umbrella of the sigma Network (new website coming soon), which is a national network of mathematics and statistics support professionals from across the UK and beyond. Over 100 colleagues from across the UK engage with this SIG, making it the most active of all of the sigma Network’s SIGs.
Alun has been an editor of MSOR Connections since 2014. This journal is now flourishing as an open-access, practitioner-focused, online publication, with over 4000 registered users and over 500 000 views.
Currently Alun is leading an international research project involving eight universities from the UK and Australia. The project explores higher education students’ current levels of awareness, usage and experiences of generative AI in supporting their learning, with a particular emphasis on its potential as an aid for learning statistics.
In summary, Alun has made a significant impact on statistics learning in the UK higher education sector and beyond. The development of statistics support as a field of endeavour alongside the provision of large numbers of high-quality learning resources have impacted the learning experiences and outcomes of tens of thousands of students.
Dr Alun Owen is a worthy recipient of the IMA John Blake University Teaching Medal.
