Publishing with a purpose
Prizes
The 2021 Winners
The Bleddyn Davies Early Career Prize has been awarded to:
With its scientific analysis and clear, concise conclusions about the scholarly contribution the article makes to the field, this is a worthy winner of our Bleddyn Davies prize. Congratulations Margot, Arwin and Viktor!
The Ken Young Best Paper prize has been awarded to:
In their award winning article, the winners of the prize for the best paper published in 2020, Jenny Lewis, Michael McGann and Emma Blomkamp, take us on a fascinating journey of discovery to explore what happens when design thinking comes into contact with power and politics. Along the way, they argue that policymakers need to learn how to incorporate the insights and practices from design thinking into policy. At the same time, though, they also argue that designers too need to learn how to deal with the politics of the policy process. They conclude that, if both sets of actors are willing to learn from each other, there should be significant benefits for policy design and all those affected by it. Indeed, they argue that it is crucial for the future of the field to appreciate the complementarities and tensions between design thinking and policy design, in order to improve policy design in the future.
This paper stands out as being the worthy winner of our annual best paper prize. Congratulations Jenny, Michael and Emma!
Criteria
The Ken Young best paper prize is awarded to the paper published in the previous year’s volume judged to represent excellence in the field. The winner’s paper will receive publicity and a period of free electronic access to their article to encourage use and citation.
- the selected paper must have been published in the previous year’s volume
- all papers, including research provocations, are eligible
- individual authors and teams of authors are eligible
- the nominations will be shortlisted and selected by the co-editors
- metrics on downloads and citations are used as part of the selection
- a short written summary statement is published on the rationale for the selection
The Bleddyn Davies early career prize is awarded to the best paper published in the previous year’s volume by an early career author. The winner’s paper will receive publicity and a period of free electronic access to their article to encourage use and citation.
- the selected paper must have been published in the previous year’s volume
- early career authors are those who completed their PhD no more than 4 years ago
- individual authors and teams of authors are eligible
- the nominations will be shortlisted and selected by the co-editors
- metrics on downloads and citations are used as part of the selection
- a short written summary statement is published on the rationale for the selection
About the Prizes
Thanks to the initiative of Bleddyn Davies and Ken Young in the early 1970s, we celebrated 40 years of the journal in 2012 and we are delighted to name two annual prizes after them in recognition of their innovative ideas and determination to put interdisciplinary analysis of and for policy firmly on the academic map in the UK and beyond.
The first issue of Policy & Politics, published by Macmillan, appeared in September 1972, with Bleddyn Davies (LSE) as founding editor and Ken Young (also at the LSE) as Associate Editor. Both had been heavily involved in the deliberations about the launch of a new journal which initially focused on local government "whilst drawing on a variety of disciplines and approaches". By September 1974 (Vol.3, No.1), publication had moved to Sage, its scope and coverage had been broadened in the sphere of public policymaking and Bleddyn and Ken became joint editors, both having moved to the University of Kent at Canterbury. The next change occurred with the January 1979 issue (Vol.7, No.1) as a result of the move by Ken to the University of Bristol, bringing the journal with him to be published by the then School for Advanced Urban Studies (SAUS). Bleddyn became a member of the Editorial Board and Ken was the Managing Editor of the journal until he handed on to Michael Hill in January 1980 (Vol.8, No,1). The journal continued to be published by SAUS until the School merged with the School of Applied Social Studies (SASS) in 1995 to form the School for Policy Studies, after which the newly created Bristol University based publisher, The Policy Press, took over the production of Policy & Politics.