Rules and Guidelines for the submission of entries for the ECSR prize for ECSR Dissertation of the Year
The thesis must have been examined and been deemed to have passed between 1 January and 31 December each year. However, the doctorate need not have been officially conferred during this period.
Each ECSR full member institution can nominate ONLY ONE candidate for the prize. The candidacy must come via the ECSR official contact person or the Head of Department (or equivalent) of each member institution. Only full member institutions can nominate candidates for the prize, and the thesis nominated must have been submitted at that institution or at an affiliated university that grants the PhD.
The prize will be awarded to the best theoretically based empirical study in sociology.
Submissions for the Prize should be made in PDF format to ecsrphdprize@gmail.com by 5 February each year. Given the transformation period, the deadline will be moved to March, 5 in 2024.
The submission must comprise (as separate PDFs in attachment):
- an abstract in English of no more than 2000 words, outlining the main arguments of the work. The abstract should outline:
a. the subject of the thesis;
b. its main findings and arguments;
c. its principal conclusions; - the table of contents of the thesis, in English.
These documents will be used to select a short-list of three candidates. The authors of the short-listed theses will be asked to provide an electronic copy of their complete thesis so that the jury can make a decision regarding the assignation of the Prize.
The Jury
The shortlisting will be made by the Executive Board of the ECSR consortium. The selection among the short-listed theses will be made by a jury that comprises a chair (appointed among the members of the ECSR board) plus two external members appointed among the member institutions. Where there is a short-listed thesis in a language in which the members of the jury lack appropriate competence, the ECSR Board will recruit an additional member with appropriate competence.
Prize Announcement
The winner of the prize will be announced at the annual ECSR conference. If it is deemed that no thesis reaches an acceptable standard, the committee may decline to award the prize in any given year. The successful candidate will be awarded a prize of Euro 500. The candidate will receive the prize at the ECSR’s Annual General Conference. Expenses to attend the prize giving will be paid for by the ECSR following the ECSR regulations/restrictions on travel and accommodation costs.
Winner of 2024
1st place: Alicia García-Sierra: Three Novel Mechanisms of Intergenerational Transmission of (Dis)Advantages
2nd place: Adrian Farner Rogne: Assessing theories and mechanisms in sociology: Insights from empirical studies on segregation, education, fertility, and class
3rd place: Bettina Hünteler: Generational Placement Trajectories and Their Associations with Later-Life Well-Being and Wealth Accumulation
Former winners
Year | Name | Thesis title |
2024 | WINNER: Alicia García-Sierra RUNNER UPS: Adrian Farner Rogne Bettina Hünteler | Three Novel Mechanisms of Intergenerational Transmission of (Dis)Advantages Assessing theories and mechanisms in sociology: Insights from empirical studies on segregation, education, fertility, and class Generational Placement Trajectories and Their Associations with Later-Life Well-Being and Wealth Accumulation |
2023 | WINNER: Dragana Stojmenovska RUNNER UPS: Aleja Rodríguez Sánchez Solveig Topstad Borgen | Men’s place. The Incomplete Integration of Women in Workplace Authority Family Behavior and Children’s Wellbeing: Statistical Modeling and Measurement Issues Segregated School Contexts, Peer Effects, and Inequalities in Education |
2022 | WINNER: Jesper Fels Birkelund RUNNER UPS: Zafer Büyükkeçeci Kirsten van Houdt | Lives on track – Family Background, educational tracking, and inequality over the life cycle Social Interaction Effects on Family Life Courses: The Social Contagion of Family Formation in Four Network Domains Stepfamilies in Adulthood |
2021 | WINNER: Carlos J. Gil Hernández RUNNER UPS: Patrick McDonald Volker Lang | Cracking Meritocracy from the Starting Gate: Social Inequality in Skill Formation and School Choice Family and employment: The impact of marriage and children on labour market outcomes Response Behavior in Factorial Survey Experiments: Challenges and Innovative Solutions |
2020 | WINNER: Felix Busch RUNNER UPS: Jonas Voßemer Tina Baier | Gender segregated labor markets and social inequality between occupations The economic and non-economic consequences of job loss, unemployment, and inadequate re-employment in Germany and Europe What have genes got to do with it? |
2019 | WINNER: Zachary Van Winkle RUNNER UPS: Arjen de Wit Gundula Zoch | The complexity of family life courses in 20th century Europe and the United States Philanthropy in the welfare state Expanding Public Childcare Services for Under-threes |
2018* | WINNERS: Anne Christine Holtmann Ridhi Kashyap | Why are children from disadvantaged families left behind The dynamics of prenatal sex selection and excess female child mortality in contexts with son preference |
2017* | WINNERS: Mareike Bünning Lars Leszczensky | Parental leave for fathers: Consequences for men’s work and family life Tell Me Who Your Friends Are? Disentangling the Interplay of Young Immigrants’ Host Country Identification and Their Friendships with Natives |
2016 | WINNER: Antonie Knigge | Sources of sibling similarity. Status attainment in the Netherlands during modernization |
2015* | WINNERS: Mathieu Ichou Valentina Di Stasio | The origins of academic inequalities: a contribution to the study of the academic trajectories of children of immigrants in France and England Why education matters to employers. A vignette study in Italy, England and the Netherlands |
2014 | WINNER: Jenny Torssander | Equality in death? How the social positions of individuals and families are linked to mortality |
2013 | WINNER: Nicoletta Balbo | Family, friends and fertility |
* Due to the exceptionally high quality of two PhD theses in this year, the prize was shared by two nominees.