Announcement – BIAJS 2026 Student Essay Prize
Call for Submissions
Deadline for Submissions: 15 June 2026
On behalf of the BIAJS committee, we are pleased to announce the launch of the 2026 BIAJS student essay prize. Two prizes of £400, ordinarily for one outstanding undergraduate and one postgraduate essay by students at institutions in the UK and Ireland, are awarded annually.
Undergraduate submissions should be a final year dissertation from the current academic year on a subject relating to Jewish Studies, broadly speaking of any period ancient through modern.
Postgraduate offerings should be an essay (excluding dissertations) submitted to their institution in the current academic year on a subject relating to Jewish Studies. Submissions by postgraduate research students are not considered.
Only one submission per candidate is allowed, although departments may submit as many prize-worthy candidates as they wish. Please provide an electronic copy of the essay, clearly identified as an undergraduate or postgraduate entry, and the email address of the student.
Submission can be made either by the supervisor of the essay or the department where the student is affiliated, and all submissions should be sent to Dr Lindsey Davidson (secretarybiajs@gmail.com), acting on behalf of the judging panel.
We also request that you obtain with permission a personal email for each candidate for getting in touch with them if they do win, in case their university email is deactivated by July when winners are announced.
Submissions to the essay prizes are restricted to students at UK and Ireland higher education institutions; we are unfortunately not in a position to accept worldwide submissions. (We do, however, accept worldwide submissions for the book prize, each year.) Student candidates are not required to be active members of BIAJS. Student winners of the essay prize will be welcome (but not required) to attend the BIAJS summer conference where the prizes will be conferred to receive their prize certificates.
The deadline for all submissions is Monday 15 June 2026 at 11:59 PM.
The prize winners will be announced in July at the BIAJS 2026 conference and the written announcement to follow in mailings and the 2026 Bulletin (released in the autumn)