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Prizes

	The Ken Young Best Paper Prize	The Bleddyn Davies Early Career Prize
2022	Benjamin Ewert, Kathrin Loer and Eva Thomann Beyond nudge: advancing the state-of-the-art of behavioural public policy and administration	Giliberto Capano and Maria Tullia Galanti From policy entrepreneurs to policy entrepreneurship: actors and actions in public policy innovation
2021	Jenny M Lewis, Michael McGann and Emma Blomkamp When design meets power: Design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking	Margot Hermus, Arwin van Buuren and Victor Bekkers Applying design in public administration: a literature review to explore the state of the art
2020	Selen Ercan, Carolyn M Hendriks and John S Dryzek Public Deliberation in an Era of Communicative Plenty	Joram Feitsma Brokering Behaviour Change: the Work Of Behavioural Insights Experts In Government and Toby Lowe, Jonathan Kimmitt, Rob Wilson, Mike Martin and Jane Gibbon Institutional Work of Creating and Implementing Social Impact Bonds
2019	Christopher M. Weible and Paul Cairney Practical Lessons from Policy Theories	Madeleine Pill and Valeria Guarneros-Meza Local governance under austerity: hybrid organisations and hybrid officers
2018	Selen Ercan, Carolyn Hendriks and John Boswell Studying public deliberation after the systemic turn: the crucial role for interpretive research	Rikki John Dean Beyond radicalism and resignation: the competing logics for public participation in policy decisions
2017	Jo Ingold and Mark Monaghan Evidence translation: an exploration of policy makers' use of evidence	Zachary Morris Constructing the need for retrenchment: disability benefits in the United States and Great Britain
2016	Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee and Jun Jie Woo From tools to toolkits in policy design studies: the new design orientation towards policy formulation research	Owen Corrigan Conditionality of legal status and immigrant occupational attainment in Western Europe
2015	Will Leggett The politics of behavioural change: nudge, neo-liberalism and the state	Caroline Kuzemko Politicising UK energy: what “speaking energy security” can do
2014	Mark Purcell The right to the city: the struggle for democracy in the urban public realm	Katherine Smith Institutional filters: the translation and re-circulation of ideas about health inequalities within policy

The 2022 Winners

The Bleddyn Davies Early Career Prize has been awarded to:

From policy entrepreneurs to policy entrepreneurship: actors and actions in public policy innovation by early career scholar Maria Galanti and her co-author Giliberto Capano.

In this outstanding paper, the winner of the prize for the best paper published in 2021 by an early career researcher, Maria Galanti along with her co-author Giliberto Capano argue that, although policy entrepreneurs are considered key actors in public policy, there are so many varied definitions of what they do that it is difficult to use the concept in a systematic, analytical way. Following a critique of the concept of policy entrepreneurs, the authors reframe the concept as a pattern of action (involving different types of actors) focused on innovation promotion via problem framing, solution development, coalition building, and seeking opportunities and attention.

With its scientific analysis and clear, concise conclusions that debunk the misconceptions surrounding the term policy entrepreneurship, this article makes a welcome contribution to the literature, and is a worthy winner of our Bleddyn Davies prize. Congratulations Maria and thank you Giliberto for your support of this exceptional work!

The Ken Young Best Paper prize has been awarded to:

Beyond nudge: advancing the state-of-the-art of behavioural public policy and administration by Benjamin Ewert, Kathrin Loer and Eva Thomann.

In their award winning article, the winners of the prize for the best paper published in 2021, Benjamin Ewert, Kathrin Loer and Eva Thomann advance our current understanding of Behavioural Public Policy by moving beyond “nudge”, the iconic but contested synonym for any policies that have been inspired by insights from the behavioural sciences so far. Based on a broad conceptual design and methodological pluralism, they suggest that behavioural policymaking must develop a more nuanced understanding of the interrelations between social structures and individual action in order to effectively tackle more complex policy problems.

The behavioural model they posit helps us to understand the varieties of influences and interactions on behaviourally informed policies and paves the way for integrating them into policy mixes that include conventional instruments in order to also address structural aspects of policy problems.

In this way, their broader conceptual design for behavioural insights presages a more intelligent and adaptive policy design that is better equipped to respond to severe policy challenges. This clear contribution to the field makes their paper stand out as being the worthy winner of our annual best paper prize. Congratulations Benjamin, Kathrin and Eva!

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
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
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.