The Sidney Prize and the Thomas Robinson Prize
The Sidney Prize is awarded each month to a journalist whose work exposes social injustice and promotes the common good. The winner receives a cash honorarium and a certificate designed by New Yorker cartoonist Edward Sorel. The Hillman Foundation also awards the annual Thomas Robinson Prize to writers who have engaged and extended the long tradition of writing about the South.
The competition is open to all HLS students and alumnae, including those who have graduated within the past year. Applicants must submit a written essay of no more than 5,000 words on a selected topic, along with a short CV. Applicants may also provide a writing sample from a previous essay or other piece of academic work. Essays are judged on both the quality of the analysis and the clarity with which the topic is presented. The winning essay will be published in the journal, and the winner will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000.
A student’s submission may be an individual essay or a joint work with another member of their class, or it may be based on research conducted independently by the author or jointly by several students in the same law school class. In addition to the essay, the applicant must include a list of sources used in researching and writing the essay. Applicants must also include an explanation of how the essay addresses the legal problem and the contribution it makes to the development of law in a global context. The essay is reviewed by a panel of judges, and the winner is announced in early 2025.
Scholarships and prizes at the University of Sydney range from general awards for outstanding achievement to research grants for advanced graduate students. In addition, the University offers a number of literary prizes for the submission of an essay or poem on a particular theme. Most of these prizes are named after former members of the University community, but some have been donated by private individuals. All literary prizes require the submission of written work and require the author to sign a copyright release form.
The University of Sydney’s literary prizes have a rich and varied history, many dating back to bequests received in the beginning of the 20th century. These prizes are intended to encourage and reward excellence in a broad range of literary genres, with the majority of them requiring the submission of a written essay on a chosen subject. Typically, the written work must be submitted under a pseudonym. The judging process is rigorous, and any work found to be plagiarized will be disqualified. Some of the more well-known prizes include the Sidney Prize, the Thomas Hughes Prize and the Dexter Edelstein Essay Prize. The latter was established in 1968 and is named after the founder of the Dexter Chemical Corporation and the 1988 recipient of SHOT’s Leonardo da Vinci Award. The judging panel for this prize consists of distinguished historians from all over the world.