2025 Student Research Awards Program
The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy is sponsoring four different prizes to recognize student research work. Prize winners will be announced on Class Day 2025. General information is below. Please read the criteria for each award carefully before submitting your work.
Eligibility
The awards program is open to students (individual authors or teams) affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy School.
Deadline
The deadline for submissions is 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
Submissions
- Submissions of all lengths are welcome; there is no maximum word limit.
- Submissions/papers should be unpublished work.
- Only one submission per person or team for each award.
- Each paper may be submitted for only one award.
- PAEs, SYPAs, case studies, class papers, dissertations, and comparable work are acceptable formats if they meet the award criteria. Please read the criteria for each award carefully.
All submissions should be sent via the .
William Julius Wilson Research Award
Topics: Research papers (including PAEs, SYPAs, dissertations, and case studies) written on a topic that Wilson’s academic research addressed, including race relations, urban poverty and joblessness, segregation, perhaps with particular attention to macro-level factors driving social phenomena.
This award honors the scholarship and research of William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Emeritus at Harvard University who was the founder and Director of the Malcolm Wiener Center’s Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program. The program’s research sought to advance understanding of the causes and consequences of chronic disadvantage among low-income families living in urban neighborhoods and contributed to national policy debates on urban poverty and racial and ethnic segregation for nearly three decades.
Manuel C. Carballo Memorial Prize
Topics: Implementation, management, and evaluation of programs to serve disadvantaged populations in the United States.
This award honors the memory of Manuel C. Carballo, a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School from 1978 to 1982. Mr. Carballo served in numerous public service positions and was Massachusetts Secretary of Human Services at the time of his death in 1984.
Frederick Fischer Memorial Prize
Topics: Criminal justice and the criminal legal system, inequality, economic and social mobility, economics of industrial policy, regional economic topics, workforce development, labor, poverty, education, immigration, social services, and related social policy issues.
This award honors the memory of Fred Fischer, an alumnus of the MPP program and a committed public servant.
Susan C. Eaton Memorial Prize
Topics: Human resources management, health care management, health care quality, union leadership, fair wage policy, health care disparities, work/family policy, gender equity, elder care and aging, and topics related to disability.
This award honors the memory of Susan C. Eaton, a member of the Harvard Kennedy School community as a student, alumna and faculty member from 1993 to 2003. Ms. Eaton was a tireless advocate for the rights of workers, both in her work as a union organizer and in her teaching and research at the school.
Note
Many past entries have been prepared originally as PAEs/SYPAs, class papers, or comparable work to meet course requirements. For the purpose of this competition, writers may, at their own discretion, revise these papers to address broader purposes and audiences in ways that clearly address the specific topic areas of each award. For PAEs/SYPAs, the client relationship should continue to be remembered and respected, but the entry should stand as the author(s) personal contribution to informed discussion and debate here and elsewhere. Awards are based on the ability of the author(s) to clearly define an issue and to propose actionable steps toward alleviating or eradicating the problem. Where applicable, papers should also include a concise review of past attempts to address the problem and how the recommended approach differs from what has been tried previously. Reviewers will also consider the feasibility of the ideas explored in the papers and whether the recommendations are based on a keen understanding of the policy climate in which they are being proposed. Other important criteria include clarity of composition, organization and presentation of information, and clearly delineated results or recommendations.
Questions
Contact Heather McKinnon at heather_mckinnon@hks.harvard.edu.