The Sidney Prize is given annually to an essay or group of essays which demonstrates outstanding scholarship on any topic, based on research and contributing significantly to knowledge of said topic. A total prize pool of PS250 will be distributed among author(s); however, the committee has the discretion not to award one if no entry meets minimum merit requirements.

At this year’s contest, three authors won prizes for essays that explore the intersection between science and the humanities. One piece written by journalists Grant Robertson and Kathryn Blaze Baum critiqued Canada’s Listeria outbreak and deaths due to negligence while Avery Haines of CTV News W5 and The Globe and Mail documented harrowing journeys made by migrants hoping to cross Darien Gap into America in search of better lives.

Dr. Emily Michelson of St Andrews won for her book Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance (Princeton University Press 2022), while Katryn Gin Lum of Stanford University received the Sidney E. Mead Prize for Heathen: Religion and Race in American History (Harvard University Press 2024).

The Sidney Prize honors Sidney Hook, a prominent American philosopher who championed academic freedom and inquiry integrity. Each year at its national conference, the National Association of Scholars presents this prize funded by an endowment from Sidney Family members as recognition for outstanding contributions in this field.