Awards & prizes

George and Teresa Smith Awards 

DSPI presents the annual George and Teresa Smith Awards to acknowledge academic achievement on the Comparative Social Policy and Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation courses. 

Five former DSPI students set up the awards in 2010, as a way of thanking the department for the opportunities and skills gained during their time in Oxford. They also wanted to honour former Heads of Department, George and Teresa Smith. We are grateful for the opportunity to recognise student achievements and to engage former students in supporting our work. 

2022 - Priscilla Samey (Comparative Social Policy) and Karen Torres Alarcón (Evidence Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

2021 - Leon David Küstermann (Comparative Social Policy); Alejandro Biondi Rodriguez, Sarah Melville and Sarani Jayawardena (Evidence Based Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

2020 - Henri Haapanala (Comparative Social Policy) and Krishna Patel (Evidence Based Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

2019 - Severin Rapp (Comparative Social Policy), Kathryn Sheridan (Comparative Social Policy) and Bridget Steele (Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

2018 - Hugo Dale Harris (Comparative Social Policy) and Bjorn Olsson (Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation) 

2017 - Matthias Haslberger, Freya Turner (Comparative Social Policy) and Johannes Müller (Evidence-Based Intervention) 

2016 - Nguyen Nhat An Trinh (Comparative Social Policy) and Noam Angrist, Sarah Hiller (Evidence-Based Intervention) 

2015 - Minna Nurminen (Comparative Social Policy) and Matthew Fowle (Evidence-Based Social Intervention) 

2014 - Joanne Cave (Comparative Social Policy) and Janina Steinert (Evidence-Based Social Intervention) 

2013 - David Railton (Comparative Social Policy); Rahel Spath and Ben Verboom (Evidence-Based Social Intervention). 

2012 - Balint Misetics  (Comparative Social Policy) and Nicholas Netto and Elona Toska (Evidence-Based Social Intervention). 

2011  - Verena Stocker (Comparative Social Policy) and Sean Grant (Evidence-Based Social Intervention). 

2010 - Andrew Hammond (Comparative Social Policy) and Becky Waller (Evidence-Based Social Intervention). 

Barnett Prize 

DSPI also awards an annual Barnett Prize for the best paper submitted by a research student. 

2021-2022 Winner:

Mobarak Hossain: Diffusing De-standardisation’ Reforms Across Educational Systems in LMICs: The Case of the World Bank, 1965-2020

2020-2021 Winners: 

Lukas Lehner: Begging thy co-worker – Is Europe’s wage growth destined to slow further? 

Mackenzie Martin: Measures of Facilitator Competent Adherence Used in Parenting Programs and Their Psychometric Properties: A Systematic Review 

2019-20 Joint Winners: 
Zuyi Fang: Parenting Programs That Address Physical Abuse in Childhood for Families of Children With Developmental Disabilities in Mainland China: Systematic Review and Meta-Regression. 
Leonie Westhoff: Wage Differences Between Atypical and Standard Workers in European Countries: Moving Beyond Average Effects. 

2018-19 Winners: 
Caspar Kaiser & Nhat An Trinh for their joint paper: Positional, mobility and reference effects: How does social class affect life satisfaction in Europe? 
Alexa Yakubovich: Long-term exposure to neighbourhood-level deprivation and the risk of experiencing intimate partner violence among women: a birth-cohort study in the United Kingdom. 
Brittany Lange: A Systematic Review of the Association between the Childhood Sexual Abuse Experiences of Mothers and the Abuse Status of Their Children: Protection Strategies, Intergenerational Transmission, and Reactions to the Abuse of their Children. 

2017-18 Joint Winners: 
Janina Steinert: Household economic strengthening through saving and budgeting: evidence from a field experiment in South Africa. 
Rosa von Gleichen: Varieties of Liberalism? A comparative analysis of family policy and poverty outcomes across the 50 United States. 

2016-17 Joint Winners: 
Bastian Betthauser: Fostering equality of opportunity? Compulsory schooling reform and social mobility in Germany. 
Claudia Stoicescu: Intimate partner violence and HIV-related sexual risk behaviour among women who inject drugs in Indonesia: a respondent-driven sampling study. 

2015-16 Joint Winners: 
Julie Hennegan: Measuring the prevalence and impact of poor menstrual hygiene management: a quantitative survey of schoolgirls in rural Uganda.  
Elona Toska: Is knowledge power? HIV-status disclosure and protective sexual practices among adolescent girls and boys in South Africa. 

2014-15 Ali Naghieh: Rebuilding professional identity and community: addressing systemic stress generated by new public management. 

2014-15 Jamie M. Lachman: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of a Parenting Program to Reduce Child Maltreatment in South Africa. The paper is now published in Child Abuse & Neglect. 

2013-14 - Ke Meng: The Political Logic of China's Pension Reform (1997-2010): A Formal Model and its Empirical Tests and Barabara Zarate Tenorio for Social Spending Responses to Organized Labour and Mass Protests in Latin America, 1970-2007. 

2012-13 - Rebecca Waller: Parenting as predictor of callous unemotional traits in young people: a systematic review. The paper is now published in the Clinical Psychology Review. 

2011-12 - Sean Grant: The Reporting Quality of Complex Social Intervention Trials: A Systematic Review of Reporting Guidelines and Trial Publications and Rebecca Waller for Do harsh and positive parenting predict parent reports of deceitful-callous behaviour in early childhood? 

2010-11 – Matt Morton: Empowerment-based non-formal education for Arab youth: A pilot randomised controlled trial.Â