Publishing with a purpose
Prizes
They found that austerity had accelerated the city council’s use of its governance structure to share the risk and responsibility of service delivery with other public and third sector community organisations. Communities were certainly having to take more responsibility for delivering their own (formerly public) services. However, they found that community-based organisations had some room for manoeuvre in developing forms of co-production that were innovative and maintained their community-focused mission, as well as responding to the strictures of funding cuts.
Their research showed how ‘devolution, decentralisation and downloading’ of ‘austerity urbanism’ (Peck,2012) encouraged hybridity at a scalar, organisational and individual level. It demonstrated the potential for transformative alternatives in the everyday and the small-scale – highlighting the need for state support rather than constraints in these processes.
Their new agenda, they suggest, will require scholars to think differently and to communicate their ideas differently from the current customary output formats which are often restrictive and narrow, involving jargon-filled expositions of their ideas, without clear meaning. They take on their own challenge in the rest of their special issue where they synthesise and communicate state of the art knowledge for eight of the most popular frameworks used in the pursuit of new knowledges about public policy, inviting scholars to join the debate.
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.