SAGE Prize for Innovation/Excellence
The SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence is awarded annually to one paper in each of the BSA's prestigious journals: Cultural Sociology, Sociological Research Online, Sociology and Work, Employment and Society.
The prize will be awarded to the paper published in the previous year's volume judged to represent innovation or excellence in the field.
The prize is £250 worth of SAGE books or a free annual individual subscription to a journal of the winner's choice. All nominees for the prize will receive publicity from the BSA and SAGE Publications, and winners' papers will receive a period of free electronic access to their article (to encourage usage and citation).
Click here for more information about the prize and judging process.
2025 Winners
Cultural Sociology
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Peggy Levitt and Andreja Siliunas (2023). Cultures of Cultural Globalization: How National Repertoires and Political Ideologies Affect Literary and Artistic Circulation. Cultural Sociology, 18(3), 332-353.
Sociology
- Alexandrina Vanke (2024). Researching Lay Perceptions of Inequality through Images of Society: Compliance, Inversion and Subversion of Power Hierarchies. Sociology, 58(3), pp.587-604.
Work, Employment & Society (Joint Winners)
- Charles Umney, Mark Stuart, Ioulia Bessa, Simon Joyce, Denis Neumann and Vera Trappmann (2024). Platform Labour Unrest in a Global Perspective: How, Where and Why Do Platform Workers Protest? Work, Employment and Society, 38(1), 3-26.
- Louise Laverty, Katherine Checkland and Sharon Spooner (2024). Unpromising futures: Early-career GPs’ narrative accounts of meaningful work during a professional workforce crisis. Work, Employment and Society, 38(3), 809-825.
Sociological Research Online
- Susie Scott and Nina Lockwood (2023). Nested Narratives: Biographical Accounts of Unlived Experience Across Three Narrative Orders. Sociological Research Online, 29(2), 472-488.
2026 Nominees
Sociology
- Nora Waitkus, Mike Savage and Maren Toft (2024). Wealth and Class Analysis: Exploitation, Closure and Exclusion. Sociology, 59(1), 126-143.
- Towers, L. (2024). Siblings and the Bereaved Self: Identity (Re)Construction Following the Death of a Brother or Sister. Sociology, 59(2), 250-266.
- Katy Wright and Sarah Irwin (2024). Not Talking about Climate Change: Everyday Interactions, Relational Work and Climate Silences. Sociology, 59(3), 406-423.
- Margaretha Järvinen and Nanna Mik-Meyer (2025). Gaming and Performance Metrics in Higher Education: The Consequences of Journal Lists. Sociology, 59(4), 725-742.
- Ratna Khanijou, Benedetta Cappellini and Sameer Hosany (2025). Bare Fridges and Burnt Tortillas: Conflictual Moments in the Making of Coupledom. Sociology, 59(5), 980-999.
- Håvard Helland, Sam Friedman, Vegard Jarness and Jørn Ljunggren (2025). Is Misrecognition Recognised? Classed Perceptions of Occupational Status. Sociology, 59(6), 1173-1194.
Work, Employment & Society
- Jeremy Aroles and Kevin Morrell (2024). Marketisation and the Public Good: A Typology of Responses among Museum Professionals. WES, 39(1), 226-247.
- Pedro Mendonça and Nadia K Kougiannou (2024). ‘We Are Not All the Same’: The Capacity of Different Groups of Food Delivery Gig Workers to Build Collective and Individual Power Resources. WES, 39(2), 311-335.
- Debra Howcroft, Emma Banister, Laura Jarvis-King, Jill Rubery and Isabel Távora (2024). Digitalisation and the Remaking of the Ideal Worker. WES, 39(3), 703-726.
- Jenny K Rodriguez, Maranda Ridgway, Louise Oldridge and Michaela Edwards (2024). Technologies of Self-Care in Precarious Neoliberal Academia: Women Academics’ Craftwork as Strategies of Coping and Complicity. WES, 39(4), 836-858.
- Jonathan Preminger (2025). Internal Borders and the Shaping of Noncitizen Workers in the Context of Ethnonational and Territorial Conflict. WES, 39(5), 1082-1102.
- Iris Po Yee Lo (2025). Queer Bonds at Work: A Dialectical Approach to Understanding Workplace Relations Among Sexual Minority Employees in Hong Kong. WES, 39(6), 1351-1372.
Visit the SAGE Prize Winners Archive to see previous winners details.