ATGENDER Postgraduate Prize in Gender Studies 2026

ATGENDER, the European Association for Gender Research, Education and Documentation, is delighted to announce the launch of the ATGENDER Postgraduate Prize in Gender Studies, celebrating outstanding scholarly and practice-based contributions to the fields of gender, feminist, queer, and trans* studies, and feminism in Europe and beyond.

This annual prize recognises innovative, original, and socially-engaged work produced by recently graduated postgraduate students at Master’s level. The prize aims to support emerging scholars, amplify critical and transnational feminist knowledge production, and strengthen connections across gender studies communities.

Please pay close consideration to the eligibility criteria below before submitting. Submissions which do not meet the eligibility and submission criteria will not be considered.

ELIGIBILITY

• Nominated dissertations should be an outstanding theoretical, empirical or practice-based piece of research and usually around 10,000 words or more in length.

• Dissertations should have been submitted for formal assessment within 12 months before the prize deadline for a Master’s level degree programme. In other words, only dissertations submitted within the year preceding the deadline are eligible. (Applicants who have submitted their dissertations but have not yet defended them are also qualified.)

• The student’s home department does not need to be a Gender Studies department; however, their submitted work must engage with issues central to gender, feminist, queer, and trans* feminism and studies within the fields of Social Sciences and Humanities. Such work may also originate from related areas, including Cultural Studies, Communication Studies, Arts, Sociology, Anthropology, or other cognate disciplines. Submissions from interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and intersectional perspectives are highly encouraged.

• Dissertations should be nominated by the student themselves via the online form below.

• The applicant must be a member of ATGENDER, either as part of an institutional membership or as an individual member, at the time of submission. For more information about membership, see here.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Submissions will be assessed on:

• Originality and intellectual contribution

• Relevance for feminist, queer, and trans* feminist and studies scholarship

• Methodological innovation, including creative, practice-based, anticolonial, decolonial, or community-engaged approaches

• Clarity of writing or presentation

• Contribution to social justice, equality, and critical gender analysis

• Submissions from outside Europe are welcome; however, the language of the submitted work should be English due to the practical difficulties in reviewing and assessing the applications.

EVALUATION PROCESS

• A prize committee composed of senior scholars, full professors, and mid-career and advanced-career researchers who are ATGENDER members will review all submissions. Members of the committee will be invited individually or formed through an open call via ATGENDER newsletter if necessary.

• The evaluation will be conducted through a blind-review process.

PRIZE

The winner will receive a €200 award and a certificate of recognition from ATGENDER, as well as promotion on ATGENDER’s website, newsletter, and social media. In addition, an invitation will be made to present the winning work at the upcoming ATGENDER Conference (2027) (travel not included). The committee may award Honourable Mentions at their discretion.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

• Applications must be submitted via the following form: https://forms.gle/fxrkZdK4b3ss7CK68

• Dissertations should be uploaded using the same link. All materials concerning the dissertation should be uploaded through the link as a single PDF.

• To ensure anonymity in the blind review process, applicants should remove all personal information that could reveal their identity, especially from the first pages of their dissertation. These initial pages should contain only relevant and technical information, such as the abstract, index, and table of contents.

APPLICATION DEADLINE

31 March 2026 — 11:59 pm (CET)

RESULTS

The winner will be announced on the ATGENDER website and mailing list within approximately four to six months of the deadline, depending on the number of submissions received.

CONTACT

For further questions, please contact: info@atgender.eu