Posted: 19th May 2025

Photo credit: John Cairns Photography

Professors Ian Horrocks, Bernardo Cuenca Grau, and Boris Motik have won a Vice-Chancellor’s Award in the Innovation and Commercialisation category. 

The awards are a University-wide celebration of our outstanding people. They celebrate excellence, dedication, courage, ambition and inspirational contributions to Oxford’s mission. The showcase is an opportunity for all staff (as well as members of the public) to engage with projects and activities were shortlisted across 11 diverse categories. 

The team were honoured for their work with Oxford Semantic Technologies, the spin-out company they co-founded in 2017. Their research has enabled the development of the Personal Data Engine, a knowledge graph-driven technology now embedded in Samsung smartphones, helping devices understand data contextually for more personalised and secure user experiences.

We are honoured to receive this prestigious award, and would like to thank the amazing team at Oxford Semantic Technologies without whom this would not have been possible. Professor Ian Horrocks 

Emma Dunlop, Senior Research Facilitator, was also recognised in this year’s awards and was shortlisted in the Research Culture category for her contributions to the University-wide roll-out of Narrative CVs.