Best Overall Performance Award:
Awarded to the top performing student in each MSc programme: Gender* (Sexuality/Research/Rights & Human Rights); Gender, Policy and Inequalities; Gender, Development and Globalisation; Gender, Peace and Security; Gender, Media and Communications.
*Results for MSc Gender students may vary due to the inclusion of the Sexuality, Research, and Rights & Human Rights tracks.
Best Critical Intervention in a Dissertation prize:
Awarded to a student whose dissertation research reflects an innovative and thorough critical intervention into a particular field and/or topic as decided by LSE Gender faculty.
Cynthia Cockburn Memorial Dissertation Prize:
This award goes to a student’s dissertation which is centrally concerned with the work of women or women’s organisations in the service of peace or that challenges state and non-state forms of militarism and armed violence. It should document peace and anti-militarist work while also acknowledging the central role of gender relations on the division of this labour and the causes and consequences of armed conflict in a given society. The dissertation does not have to draw specifically on the work of Cynthia Cockburn, but should advance feminist understanding of gender conceptualisations and activist work which challenges the pervasiveness of all forms of militarism and war.
Betty Scharf Prize for Best Dissertation in Gender and Religion
Betty Sharf was a prolific international activist and sociology lecturer at the London School of Economics from 1944 until 1980, producing a standard textbook, The Sociological Study of Religion, in 1972, and pioneering a course on sex and gender. You can read more about her accomplishments here. In her memory, the Department of Gender Studies awards this prize each year to the best dissertation that not only relates to religion, but is also thought to have the greatest significance for the future of global societies.
Friends of the Women’s Library at LSE: Essay Prize
The Friends of TWL prize is offered for dissertations words making extensive (though not exclusive) use of the archive and print resources of The Women’s Library at LSE, and focussing on the 20th century collections. It will be offered again at the end of this academic year (Covid, bird flu and other unforeseen eventualities permitting).
A prize of £500 is offered for a thesis which has been awarded a Master’s degree.
Among the many subjects suggested for investigation are international women’s organisations; war work; refugee relief; campaigns around trafficking and slavery; British-Indian relations; the League of Nations; women in journalism and the media; civil and family law; housing; interwar and ‘2nd-wave’ feminism.
In addition to the dissertation workshops organised via HY300 and LSE LIFE, students – and tutors - wishing to explore the resources of TWL are encouraged to contact Dr Gillian Murphy, LSE Curator for Equality, Rights and Citizenship, who can introduce them to the full range of manuscript and print collections.
If you have any questions about the specific requirements and deadlines, please email friendsofthewomenslibrary@gmail.com
LSE Africa Dissertation Prize
Every year the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa hosts the Master’s Dissertation on Africa Prize for LSE students. Aimed at encouraging and celebrating LSE's outstanding fieldwork and research on Africa, the FLIA Master's Dissertation on Africa Prize recognises the year's most innovative and significant dissertations that further our understanding of the continent.