Professor Mary Beard received the Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2022 Times Higher Education Awards.
The citation hailed how she had “broken through the ivory tower’s walls and brought her unique enthusiasm for her subject – and crucially, what it can teach us about contemporary life and politics – to the world”, through television programmes and public commentary. Receiving the award, Professor Beard made a powerful case for the importance of the Humanities: “The humanities are not a vanity project that we only support when the going is good!” She also said that she was accepting the award on behalf of all her colleagues who are working so hard to dispel misapprehensions about Classics.