European Society for Translation Studies

Young Scholar Prize

The next EST Young Scholar Prize will be presented at the EST Congress in 2025. The total value of the prize is EUR 6,000. The main winner of the prize will receive EUR 3,000 while the allocation of the additional EUR 3,000 will be at the discretion of the YSP Committee and decided on the basis of the submissions it receives.

The prize is awarded for an excellent and significant contribution to Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) in the form of a first doctoral thesis by a young scholar (i.e. early-stage researcher). The work must have been completed and approved by the relevant doctoral committee between 31 January 2022 and 31 January 2025.

 

Who can apply
Applicants must be members of the Society at the time of application (for details, go to “How to join us“). Applicants must apply themselves. Supervisors and other EST members are requested to draw the attention of potential applicants to the prize.

 

How to apply (for 2025)
Applications should be submitted electronically to the EST Secretary General (secretarygeneralest@gmail.com) from 1-31 January 2025 (and not before). If you are defending close to the 31 January 2025 deadline, please contact the Secretary General in advance for advice about how to proceed.

 

Applications must include:

  • the PhD thesis to be evaluated and/or a link to it in an academic repository;
  • a detailed abstract of between 1,500 and 2,000 words motivating the topic of the work and describing the methodology used. It should also explain the significance of the contribution and the innovation it offers in terms of the themes covered and/or the methodology it introduces. Each of these aspects is vital for the submission to be considered for the prize. It is essential that the abstract reflects the quality of the research for it to make it into the second round;
  • a clearly structured curriculum vitae of 3 to 4 pages providing relevant details of the candidate’s professional and academic career, publications and conference presentations as well as the title of the PhD, the date of the viva and the names of the supervisor(s);
  • a certified statement from the PhD supervisor that mentions the title of the PhD, the date of the viva, the grade obtained (if applicable, with a brief explanation of the grading system), and the names of the other committee members or a scan of the official PhD certificate that includes all the preceding information.

The doctoral thesis may be in any language. The abstract and curriculum vitae must be in English.

 

Assessment

First round: The abstracts will be assessed by all the members of the EST Young Scholar Prize Committee.  The writing style of the abstract will not be evaluated, but applicants should be aware that a poorly written abstract affects the overall presentation of the research and they may want to consider having it proofread by a highly competent user of English.

 

Second round: Selected PhDs will be assessed by at least three referees with the appropriate expertise with respect to topic and language who are either members of the YSP Committee or qualified academics who are appointed by the EST Young Scholar Prize Committee.

The assessment criteria are:

  1. Methodology (conceptual clarity, approach, appropriateness in terms of the research questions, design, implementation)
  2. General contribution to TIS, impact on TIS and degree of innovation
  3. Form (clarity, language correctness, terminological adequacy, layout, tables, figures, appendices, lack of typographical errors etc.)

The final decision will be proposed by the Young Scholar Prize Committee and ratified by the EST Executive Board.

The winner(s) and shortlisted candidates will be announced at the 2025 EST conference and listed on this EST webpage (see below).

 

Previous winners of the prize

  • 2001: Nike Kocijančič Pokorn, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 2004: Minhua Liu, University of Texas at Austin, United States
  • 2007: Cemal Demircioğlu, Okan University, Istanbul, and Jorge Braga Riera, University of Oviedo, Spain
  • 2010: Sara Friedman, University of Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 2013: Haidee Kruger, North-West University, South Africa, and Beatriz Cerezo Merchán Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain
  • 2016: Iris Schrijver, University of Antwerp, Belgium
  • 2019: Nina Reviers, University of Antwerp, Belgium
    • Other 2019 finalists: Claudine Borg, Anne Ketola, Katarzyna Stachowiak, Raluca Tanasescu, Chuan Yu
  • 2022: Mary Nurminen, University of Tampere, Finland and Raphael Sannholm, University of Stockholm, Sweden
    • Other 2022 finalists: Laura Ivaska, Sarah McDonagh, and Susana Valdez