University of Dundee Student Volunteer Organisation of the Year Award

This year we are delighted to announce that The Wave Project are our Student Volunteer Organisation of the Year for 2026!

Following a nomination from student Danils Vanags, Law (Scots and English Dual Qualifying) LLB (Hons), The Wave Project was selected by DVVA as our award winner and the award itself was collected by Derek McDonald-Lee at our annual Volunteering & Go Global Fair.

For 15 years as a registered charity, The Wave Project has been supporting children and young people to improve their mental health and wellbeing through Surf Therapy.

This year we were delighted to announce that the Scottish SPCA became our Student Volunteer Organisation of the Year for 2025!
Following a nomination from MSc Business student Rakul Syam, the Scottish SPCA was selected by DVVA as our award winner and the award itself was collected by Volunteering Programme Manager Lesley Toles, at our annual Student Celebratory Event. The Scottish SPCA gives student volunteers the chance to promote animal welfare, support events and advocate for kindness and compassion.

The Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) is the democratically elected voice of Scotland’s young people, and engages with the Scottish Government, MSPs and national voluntary organisations to enhance and protect the rights of children and young people. SYP were nominated by International Relations and Politics student Marcus Flucker.

Nominated by second year Molecular Biology student Katie, Girlguiding Scotland is Scotland’s largest youth organisation completely dedicated to girls and aims to inspire them through fun, friendship, challenge and adventure, thanks to a network of more than 9,000 volunteers. If you would like to find out more, or sign up to volunteer, please visit the Girlguiding Scotland website.

Roxburghe House is a purpose-built unit in the grounds of Royal Victoria Hospital which offers specialist palliative care to patients with a variety of life limiting illnesses. If you would like to find out more, or sign up to volunteer, visit the NHS Tayside website.

The Nilupul Foundation promote health and wellbeing by providing free mental health courses in Dundee for disadvantaged groups of people. If you would like to find out more, or sign up to volunteer for the foundation, please visit their website

The UoD Patientbank Programme is vital to the teaching of our undergraduate medical, nursing and dental students. The volunteers facilitate learning by portraying illness, injury and allowing students to focus on the development of skills in a safe and controlled learning environment before seeing hospital/clinical patients.

HMS Unicorn has an active group of volunteers and work closely with various student groups including the University of Dundee and, in 2019, engaged with four Dundee University interns. The opportunity for volunteers from lots of different backgrounds to work together on real projects and provide a very vital and genuine development opportunities for their museum is a key to their programme and success.