Neville Butler Prize Winners 2009

Three early-career researchers were recognised at the award ceremony in Parliament Building earlier this month.

A paper comparing the characteristics of childless women and mothers in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Longitudinal Study by Simon Whitworth and Martina Portanti, of the ONS, has won the inaugural Neville Butler Memorial Prize competition for early-career researchers.

Martina and Simon received their award at a ceremony in the Parliament Building, Westminster, that was staged to coincide with Social Science Week. They received £3,000 and a cut-glass trophy from John Bynner, the Director of Longview. The ceremony, held in conjunction with the Michael Young Award, was opened by Ian Diamond, Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council. Peter Bottomley of the Science and Technology Committee and Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation, also spoke in recognition of the contribution of all the prize-winners. The ceremony was held in conjunction with the Michael Young Awards.

The second prize of £1,500 went to Dylan Kneale, a research and evaluation analyst who recently completed his PhD at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. His paper examined Pathways to parenthood/Housing and the lifecourse. The £500 third prize went to Reuben Ng for a paper entitled The development of Cultural Intelligence through Travel-Abroad programs: longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of sojourners.

The prize scheme is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Neville Butler Memorial Fund and is organised by Longview, an independent think tank devoted to promoting longitudinal research in the UK. It was launched to mark the remarkable contribution to longitudinal research made by Neville Butler, founder of the 1958 and 1970 cohort studies. Professor Butler died on February 22, 2007, at the age of 86.

The memorial prize scheme rewards the best papers by early-career researchers on longitudinal research that has wide general, as well as academic, interest. Papers have to be accompanied by a dissemination plan targeted at maximising impact. An announcement on the timetable for next year’s competition is expected in early summer 2009.