The Rudolf Wildenmann Prize is awarded annually to an early career scholar (before PhD or within five years of receiving their PhD) in recognition of an outstanding Paper presented at the Joint Sessions of Workshops. This can be a co-authored Paper, under certain circumstances. The award for this prize is £900.
To nominate, please use the Nomination Form which will display at the top of this page during the nomination period.
Nomination information will be sent directly to Workshop Directors and Co-Directors, who are welcome to nominate ONE Paper from their Workshop for this prize.
Nominations open: Friday 10 April 2026 Nominations close: Friday 22 May 2026
Eligibility
Nominations must be submitted by the Workshop Director (or jointly with the Co-Director), with a limit of one paper per Workshop.
Nominees must work or study at any ECPR Member institution
Nominees must be pre-PhD or within 5 years of receiving it
Co-authored papers are acceptable, under the following conditions:
The majority of authors are from Member institutions
All co-authors are pre-PhD or within 5 years, or
If a senior scholar is involved, it is clarified that the junior/s took the leading role.
Exclusions
Self-nominations are not accepted
Candidates holding roles with the ECPR as EC Members, Director, or Editors will not be considered
Workshop directors are not eligible
Document submission requirements:
To nominate, please submit a copy of the paper along with the following details:
The full name of the author/s and their email address
Their affiliated institution
If they have been awarded their PhD (and relevant dates) or if they are currently undertaking it
The title of the Paper
The title of the Workshop in which the Paper was presented
The rationale for nominating the Paper for the prize
Jury
This prize is judged by a jury consisting of members of our Executive Committee and editors of some of our journals.
The 2025 prize jury is comprised of:
Christian Haerpfer, Executive Committee Member, University of Vienna (Chair)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Economics and Political Science, University of St Gallen.
Selective responses to the climate crisis: International financial institutions and strategic ignorance is Timon's groundbreaking paper which applies several cutting-edge text analysis methods to systematically attract and figure out how IFIs communicate about climate change issues.
Conceptualization and Measurement of Regulatory Discretion: Text Analysis of 120 Years of British Legislation
PhD Candidate, Political Science Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Fellow of the Advanced Graduate Studies Program ('Telem') and the Center for Interdisciplinary Data Science Research (CIDR) at the Hebrew University.
The Rudolf Wildenmann Prize is awarded annually to an early career scholar (before PhD or within five years of receiving their PhD) in recognition of an outstanding Paper presented at the Joint Sessions of Workshops. This can be a co-authored Paper, under certain circumstances. The award for this prize is £900.
