Category Archives: Prizes

The Peter B Clarke Memorial Essay Prize

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I’m writing you just before breaking for the holidays to let you know that our annual postgraduate essay prize is open to receive submissions. The Peter B Clarke Memorial Essay Prize is sponsored by Taylor and Francis, and it awards an essay on any aspect of contemporary religion addressed from a sociological perspective.

Up for grabs is £100 cash prize, £50 book voucher, a subscription to Journal of Contemporary Religion, and a full pass for a Socrel Annual Conference. As well, the winner is welcome to submit their entry to Journal of Contemporary Religion and, subject to peer review, it will be published and identified as the prize-winning article.

Full details are on our website, including the cover sheet can be download.

https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/sociology-of-religion-study-group/funding/

The deadline for the essay prize is 30 April 2021. There is lots of time, so if you are a postgraduate member, please consider entering! And if you are supervising a student or teach students in this field, please pass on the details for their consideration.

With best regards,

Michael Munnik

Publications and Communications Officer, Socrel

on behalf of the Socrel Executive Committe

Distinguished Book Award seeks Nominations

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Looking for Good Books

The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Book award recognizes the most outstanding book published by a SSSR member or members within the past two years. To be eligible for the 2021 award, books must be nominated by a SSSR member (yes, self-nominations are welcome) and have an imprint copyright publication date of 2019 or 2020. The committee will judge each book’s quality of scholarship, importance to the field, and relevance to the larger society. Any book involving some aspect of the scientific study of religion is eligible.

The deadline for nominations is January 11, 2021. The form will be available beginning December 4, 2020.

For more information, please visit our website’s Book Award page.

Prize: Best Doctoral Thesis or First Monograph in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World

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The Sixth Round of the BRAIS-De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World is now open for submissions.

The British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) and De Gruyter are delighted to announce the sixth round of the BRAIS-De Gruyter Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. This international prize will be awarded annually to the best doctoral thesis or unpublished first monograph based on a doctoral thesis. English-language submissions on any aspect of the academic study of Islam and the Muslim world, past and present, including Muslim-minority societies are accepted. Applicants can be based in any country, and manuscripts will be assessed on the basis of scholarly quality and originality.

The award includes publication of the winning manuscript and a prize of £1,000, and it will be officially presented at the Annual Conference of BRAIS. The selection process will be undertaken by a seven-member prize committee comprising established academics from across the field.

Deadline: 5.00 pm GMT, 31 December 2020

For more details, including rules and regulations, contact, the past Prize winners, and the Prize committee members, please visit: http://www.brais.ac.uk/prize/2021

SOCREL Posts and Essay Prize

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We’re pleased to publish a new blog post this week from Ali Kassem, a doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex and winner of the 2019 Peter B Clarke Memorial Essay Prize. Ali writes about his research among women who wear hijab in Lebanon, and he reflects on the benefits of putting his thoughts into the essay and the positive effect of feedback and review he’s received since winning. You can read his post here:https://socrelstudygroup.blogspot.com/2020/04/islamophobia-and-decolonising-sociology.html

This year’s essay prize is open for current postgraduates who become members with Socrel. Details are on our website, and I want to flag that we have extended the deadline to 30 April for submissions. You’ve got a month to go – please send us your writing. If you are a supervisor of PhD researchers in the sociology of religion, please pass this opportunity on to them. https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/sociology-of-religion-study-group/funding/
With best regards,
Michael Munnik
Publications and Communications, Socrel

Seed Corn Funding Competition: Call for Applications

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As part of its ongoing effort to invest in its membership, Socrel invites applications for seed corn funding to support the development of significant and innovative work in the sociology of religion.

This competition is open to Socrel members at any stage of their careers who are also members of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and based at a UK university.

We will make one award of up to £5000 to be used in 2021.

The deadline for applications is 15th January 2020. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by end of January/early February 2020.

This award may be spent, in line with the BSA’s terms and conditions, on travel, subsistence, a one-off work package delivered by a third party e.g. event recording, transcription, research expenses e.g. equipment, software, printing, but not salary or indirect costs/overheads/full economic costing (fEC). We are open-minded as to the type of activity the seed corn funding is used for, for example, a writing workshop, pilot fieldwork, but it must be clearly designed to develop further work.[1]

We welcome applications from groups of members. In this instance, there must be a designated lead applicant who is a Socrel and BSA member and all co-applicants must have at least Socrel membership.

Any seed corn activity must be undertaken in line with the (lead) applicant’s university’s codes of ethics and conduct and data protection policies. The BSA will pay the award to the successful (lead) applicant’s institution once an invoice has been received.

The application form (see appendix A), the lead applicant CV, and short CVs for any other co-applicant named (if applicable) must be emailed to the Socrel Convenor, Céline Benoit (c.benoit@aston.ac.ukmailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk).

A note of support for the proposal from the (lead) applicant’s line manager/head of department/postgraduate supervisor/institutional point of contact should also be emailed separately to Céline by the competition closing date.

Criteria:

Applications will be judged by the Socrel Chair, another Socrel committee member, and two independent volunteer Socrel members, using the following criteria, which are ranked in descending order, using the criteria used by the RCUK

1. Eligibility of applicant(s): affiliation to a UK university; Socrel AND BSA membership for the (lead) applicant and at least Socrel membership for any co-applicants;
2. Innovation;
3. Significance;
4. Clarity of pathway to output(s) and/or outcome(s) e.g. a research project proposal, publicly
available report, film, journal article, social impact[2];
5. Applicant background and experience and proposal match;
6. Benefit to Sociology of Religion in the UK;
7. Value for money.

Please email c.benoit@aston.ac.uk<mailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk> if you have any queries.

[1] Any event(s) organised should not clash with any Socrel-run ones or the BSA annual conference (please check the Socrel website or with Socrel Events Officer Rachael Shillitoe (rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk<mailto:rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk>) if unsure of scheduling).

[2] Here we follow the Economic and Social Research Council’s definition of social impact, please visit https://esrc.ukri.org/research/impact-toolkit/what-is-impact/ for details.

The Donner Institute Prize for Outstanding Research into Religion 2019

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The Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History hereby calls for nominations for its annual prize for outstanding research into religion. The nominations should be submitted by 31 May 2019. The prize announcement is posted on our website: https://www.donnerinstitute.fi/en/current-3/nominate-a-candidate-for-the-2019-donner-research-prize/

Åbo/Turku, 15 April 2019
Ruth Illman, Director
The Donner Institute

The Donner Research Prize 2018 to Henni Alava

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The Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History in Turku has awarded Dr Henni Alava the 2018 prize for outstanding research into religion. Dr Alava is awarded for her book ’There is Confusion.’ The Politics of Silence, Fear and Hope in Catholic and Protestant Northern Uganda (Development Studies, University of Helsinki, 2017).

The Donner Institute Prize is awarded annually for outstanding research into religion conducted at a Nordic university. It is intended for researchers in the field of religious studies for a significant and relatively newly published monograph or article in print or digital form. The prize sum is 5,000 Euros.

More information:

Svenska: https://www.donnerinstitute.fi/aktuellt-3/donnerska-institutets-pris-for-framstaende-religionsforskning-till-henni-alava/

English: https://www.donnerinstitute.fi/en/current-3/the-donner-research-prize-2018-to-henni-alava-2/

On behalf of the Donner Institute Board,

Turku, 1 October 2018

Tage Kurtén, Chairman

Ruth Illman, Secretary

Application Procedures for the 2018 Varga Prize

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This award has been set in memory of Ivan Varga (1931-2012) and recognizes an outstanding new paper by a scholar who is at most three years beyond the PhD. The recipient is expected to present the paper at the next International Sociological Association (ISA) World Congress.

The prize consists of the registration fee for the ISA World Congress and a sum of 1000 Euro intended to cover part of the recipient expenses to attend the World Congress.

Guidelines

  • Candidates do not need to be members of ISA or members of ISA Research Committee for the Sociology of Religion (RC22)
  • All areas and topics of the sociology of religion are eligible for the Varga Prize.
  • Papers should be original and written in any of the three ISA official languages (English, Spanish or French).
  • There is no set length of the paper, but as a recommendation, a journal article length is appropriate. Authors could choose any bibliographic/citation format, as long as it is scholarly and the chosen format is kept coherently through the text

Evaluation of papers

An Evaluation Committee, appointed by the President of RC22, will be made up of members of the RC22 Board plus a few other scholars. The Committee will base its judgment on the papers scholarly quality, originality, and significance for furthering the sociological study of religion.

The Committee will choose the prize winner plus a runner-up, in case the winner is unable to accept the award due to an inability to attend the World Congress. The runner-up will also receive a monetary award. The winner and runner-up will be announced by February 1st 2018.

Application Procedure:

  1. Submit your paper proposal to one of the RC-22 sessions at the ISA website
    • Deadline is September 30th 2017, 24:00 GMT
  2. Send a copy of your abstract and the full finished paper to the President and the Secretary of the RC 22, along with a curriculum vitae and a letter describing your research and its significance. The paper and other documents should preferably be sent in PDF format.