We received 35 nominations for the David Edge prize this year.
The criteria that have been used are:
Theoretical depth and sophistication
Quality of the empirical work (both sound and generative)
Contributions to the field of STS beyond the particulars of the case study
(A contribution to the field of STS would entail more than instrumental or circumstantial use of STS notions to make a point for another audience in, say, sociology, philosophy, history, etc., that have their own awards to honour such work)
Some journals did not make submissions. This shows how erratic prize nominations become when these are not in the hands of the membership.
Based on individual top-5 selections, 10 papers were longlisted that were read more closely once again by all.
At the meeting, levels of familiarity with authors and potential conflicts of interest were declared. It was important to have those on the table, although connections cannot be avoided, (for example if other council members are being externally nominated).
The winner of the 2019 David Edge prize is Etienne S. Benson’s, “A Centrifuge of Calculation: Managing Data and Enthusiasm in Early Twentieth-Century Bird Banding,” published in 2017 by OSIRIS.
Considerations for future:
Two submissions were self-submissions of different articles by the same author. Although we do not have an explicit rule that precludes this option, we felt it was less than fair to me to not even make the effort to select the article the self-nominator thinks is best. The PDFs for these articles were also missing:
Without formally excluding them, we did not feel compelled to review these submissions, nor to chase the PDFs.
Does council want to introduce a formal rule to preclude multiple self-submissions?
There was an incomplete submission. We decided not to chase the details and PDF. We may want to set this as a policy (and include in the call for nominations);
In spite of encouraging scholars to recommend scholarly works for prices, we could consider to keep allowing – and even encourage – journal editor nominations because they are also scholars with central positions in the field.
Edge Committee: Maria Belen Albornoz, Teun Zuiderent-Jerak (Chair), and Ana Viseu
