Notes and Records Essay Award

Notes and Records, the Royal Society journal of the history of science, reports on current research and archival activities throughout the field of history of science, technology and medicine.

The Notes and Records biennial Essay Award has been running since 2011 and is open to early career researchers in the history of science who have completed a postgraduate degree within the last five years. The winning entry is chosen using the journal's standard criteria for selection, excellence and interest to a wide audience, and published in the journal. Winners of the Essay Award receive a cash prize of £500. One runner-up also receives a cash prize of £250, while up to three honourable mentions each receive £100. Additionally, all winners are granted a one-year online subscription to Notes and Records.

2025 Competition now closed for entries 

The 2025 competition is now closed for entries and the winner will be announced later in the year. The competition will open again in 2027. For more information, take a look at the terms and conditions of the competition, including eligibility and how to enter. If you have any questions, please contact the editorial office at any time.

Essay award winners

Winning essays along with those recognised as runners-up are featured in this special collection.

2023 winner: Robin S. Reich for 'Ptolemy's Almagest and the translation of diagrams'

2021 winner: Fiona Amery for 'The disputed sound of the aurora borealis: sensing liminal noise during the First and Second International Polar Years, 1882–3 and 1932–3'

2019 winner: Patrick Luiz Sullivan De Oliveira for 'Martyrs made in the sky: the Zénith balloon tragedy and the construction of the French Third Republic's first scientific heroes'

2015 winner: James F. Stark for 'Anti-reductionism at the confluence of philosophy and science: Arthur Koestler and the biological periphery'

2013 winner: Emily Winterburn for 'Philomaths, Herschel, and the myth of the self-taught man'

2011 winner: Daniel Jon Mitchell for 'Reflecting nature: chemistry and comprehensibility in Gabriel Lippmann's ‘physical’ method of photographing colours'