The British Association of Chinese Studies invites nominations for the Best Doctoral Thesis Prize on China completed in 2025. Self-nominations are invited. To enter the competition:
- A candidate must be a member of the British Association of Chinese Studies. If you are not a member and wish to be eligible, please find details on how to join BACS here: http://bacsuk.org.uk/about-us/membership
- A candidate must have successfully passed their thesis at any point between 1st January 2025 and 31st December 2025.
- The candidate must have completed their doctorate at a UK higher education institution.
- Candidates can have completed their thesis on China in any disciplinary or interdisciplinary (e.g. area studies, development studies, gender studies, social policy studies, media studies) department and with reference to any time period.
To enter the prize competition, candidates need to email the following documents to the Administrative Chair of the BACS Doctoral Thesis Prize Panel, Ting Guo, (ting.guo@liverpool.ac.uk) by 31st May 2026:
- A copy of a letter from the candidate’s university confirming their award of a doctorate or else a graduation or degree certificate.
- An abstract of the thesis
- A two-page A4 statement (12 pt. font, single line spacing) in which the candidate explains the original theoretical and empirical contributions of the thesis to both Chinese Studies and to the relevant disciplinary or interdisciplinary fields.
- The candidate also needs to arrange for either a thesis supervisor or a thesis examiner to submit a recommendation letter to the panel, care of the Administrative Chair of the BACS Doctoral Thesis Prize, which evaluates the quality of the thesis. The recommendation letter needs to be emailed by the referee directly to the Administrative Chair (ting.guo@liverpool.ac.uk) by 31st May 2026.
- Please note that all emails to the Administrative Chair need to have ‘BACS Doctoral Thesis Prize’ and the candidate’s full name in the email subject line.
- Late submissions will not be accepted.
Based on these documents, the Awards Panel (TBA) will draw up a short list of nominees, following which the Awards Panel will invite the shortlisted nominees to submit an electronic copy of their thesis to each of the panel members by email.
The winner will be announced at the BACS Annual General Meeting during the annual conference to be held at Lancaster University from 2-4 September 2026. The winner will receive a prize of £500 and support in attending the conference. The thesis abstract and bio of the winner will be posted on the BACS website.
The best doctoral thesis prize is an opportunity to highlight the important and innovative research that is being conducted on China across the UK higher education sector and among UK-based academics at the early career stage.