UKPAC Prize Competition 2005: Judges’ Report
The Prospectus for the 2005 competition read, in part, as follows:
The competition, which is intended to encourage the participation of relatively young or new academics and practitioners in the work of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) and its affiliate bodies, is open to any UK citizen or to anyone employed or resident in the UK at the time that the winning entry was published. Although there are no age limits for the competition, the judges will give particular credit to work submitted by authors who are under 40 and/or at an early stage of their careers.
The judges will be looking for published work in any field of public administration or public management that makes a particularly important and original contribution to theory and/or practice in these fields. Contributions from cognate disciplines (such as public law, organisational psychology or sociology) will be eligible for consideration.
The requirements of the competition are as follows:
- Entry is not restricted to publications in UK books and journals. However, the publication must be in the English language.
- Publication must have taken place since 1 January 2004.
- The length of items submitted must be between 5,000 and 10,000 words.
- Items deemed eligible will include articles and book chapters. Other categories of publication such as pamphlets, reports and occasional papers may also be considered, at the judges’ discretion.
- Jointly-authored work will be eligible for consideration, but in the event of such work being the winning entry only one prize will be awarded. All the authors of such work must have given written permission (see (vi)) for its submission to the competition
- Academics and practitioners are invited to nominate the work of
colleagues (particularly more junior colleagues) for consideration, but
entries may also be self-nominated. All the authors of items submitted must
have given written consent for their work to be considered. Four copies (offprints
or clear photocopies) of entries must be submitted.
The closing date for submission is 31 May 2005 and this deadline will be strictly applied.
The judges felt, unanimously, that four of the five entries were worthy of serious consideration, but they also felt that none of the entries came near to matching the excellent standards set by the front runners, and in particular by the winner, of the 2004 competition. So it is our recommendation that the full UKPAC prize should not be awarded to any of this year’s entrants.
However, after further discussion, we came unanimously to the view that two entries displayed substantial merit, and we recommend letters of commendation, together with cash prizes of £250 in respect of the following:
Francesca Gains (University of Manchester), ‘”Hardware, Software or Network Connection”? Theorising Crisis in the UK’s Next Steps Agencies’, Public Administration, 82(3), 2004, pp. 547-66
Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán (University of East Anglia), ‘EU Accession and Interest Politics in Central and Eastern Europe’, Perspectives in European Politics and Society, 5(2), 2004, 244-72.
One of the judges was of the view that that, ‘The paper by Gains delivers an original analysis on the continuing impact of executive agencies. The use of the theoretical perspective of networks theory provides an interesting explanation of agencies' role in the policy process.’ And another judge writes that ‘to anyone who has worked in the accession countries, Borragán’s article conveys a real understanding of the issues involved, and is both forward-looking and topical.’
We are pleased to record that both of the entrants recommended for awards are, in line with the intentions of the competition, at early stages of their professional careers.
Gavin Drewry (Convenor),
Andrew Massey
Margaret Saner
July 2005