Prizes
The EBHA awards three prizes. The Best Paper Prize is awarded at each Annual Congress to the best paper presented at the Congress. The Dissertation Prize is award bi-annually for the best dissertation on business history submitted to a European university in the two preceding years. The EBHA Lifetime Award is awarded at the discretion of the Council to a scholar that has made an outstanding contribtion to the field of business history.
EBHA Best Paper Prize
Since 2009, EBHA has awarded a price for the best paper on European business history, broadly understood, presented at its annual congress. The prize consists of a certificate and a cash prize of 250 euros. The winner will be announced, and the prize presented, at the annual congress' gala dinner. Those papers which want to be eligible must be sent via email to jan-otmar.hesse[at]uni-bayreuth.de by June 15, 2025.
The term “European business history” is defined broadly, but it refers here to the topic of the paper, NOT to the author’s nationality or place of residence.
According to EBHA Book of Procedures, papers that meet all of the following four criteria are eligible:
1) the paper is on European business history; and
2) the paper is related to the congress theme; and
3) the paper adheres to the maximum length; and
4) the paper is sent on or before the deadline specified (this year, June 15, 2020).
The procedure for nominating papers is as follows:
• The best paper prize committee will assess all papers submitted by the deadline indicated below for eligibility using the criteria outlined above.
• Papers must be around 20 pages of A4, double spaced, and with a minimum 12-point font size. This amount to around 6,000 words (although the committee will not execute this limitation strictly, please try to adjust to this length). Authors should note that the maximum length includes any references and bibliography. To this may be appended, in addition, tables, graphs, or pictures. The paper must be must be sent via email to jan-otmar.hesse[at]uni-bayreuth.de no later than June 15, 2025 in order to be considered. Specified in the submission you are applying to this prize.
• Members of the best paper prize committee are ineligible for the prize.
The best paper prize committee’s decision is final, and it reserves the right not to award a prize in any given year. All members of the Best Paper Prize Committee are not allowed to discuss their decision outside the committee. The Best Paper Prize Committee will never give any reason for its decisions.
EBHA Dissertation Prize
Since 1996, the EBHA has awarded a bi-annual prize for the best dissertation on European business history submitted to a European university.
Eligible submissions must meet the following conditions: the dissertation must be submitted to a European university in the two calendar years preceding the Congress and with a subject matter in the field of European business history. Three finalists will be selected from the dissertations submitted for consideration, and the authors will be required to give a presentation based on their dissertations at a plenary session at the EBHA Annual Congress. All three finalists will receive a certificate that they have been among the short-listed candidates and will be eligible for reimbursement of part of their travel costs. All three will also be eligible for a waiver of their registration fees for the Congress. In addition, the prize winner will receive EUR 500 and a special certificate. The finalists are invited to have written versions of their presentations published in the Newsletter of EBHA. The prize and the travel cost reimbursement fund have been funded since 2010 by the William Lind Foundation and the Centre for Business History in Scotland.
Procedure for entry
All candidates wishing to enter the prize competition must meet the criteria indicated above and must attach a summary of 1-2 pages of their dissertation to the application along with an electronic copy of the dissertation itself. The candidate must document that the thesis has been accepted. If possible an assessment report should be added to the application. Supervisors of candidates may also be invited by the candidate to write a 1 page recommendation outlining the strong points of the thesis. Recommendation and assessment reports are, however, optional, and absence of these documents will not count against the candidate in the competition.
Further instructions on how to submit and the deadline for application will be announced later. Dissertations submitted after this date or submitted without a summary and a documentation of acceptance, will not be considered.
Judgement criteria
Each dissertation will be evaluated by at least one external referee, preferably from another country than the candidate.
The dissertation prize committee, which is appointed by the EBHA council, will select the three, or if necessary four, finalists. Their decision cannot be overruled and will be taken on the basis of the following criteria:
a) significance and novelty (innovation) of the topic and/or methodology;
b) adequacy of theoretical framework, including literature review and formulation of hypotheses;
c) methodology, including description and evaluation of sources used;
d) structure of thesis and cohesion of arguments;
e) overall written presentation of results;
f) oral presentation.
The dissertation prize committee's decision is final, and it reserves the right not to award a prize in any given year.
A checklist of items a) through e) will be given to the external referee, who will be asked to rank the dissertation's quality for each criterion on a simple three point scale (with 1 indicating among top 10%, 2 among the top 33%, and 3 among top 50% based on the experience of the referee). In case of very similar rankings, a second referee may be consulted at the discretion of the judges.
The judges will then use this information along with any judgments they themselves have formed on the basis of all materials submitted to choose the finalists. The oral presentation will be ranked by them, and the overall rankings will be then used to choose the prize winner. The prize winner will be announced at the Congress gala dinner.
Please note: Names of referees and all paperwork associated with the decision-making process will be confidential. It will not be possible to enter any correspondence or discussion about the decision of the judges or the process through which they have arrived at it.
Past recipients
2024 Tine Petersen Malonæs, BI Norwegian Business School
2022 Matthijs Degraeve, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
2018 Valeria Giacomin, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
2016 Marten Boon, NTNU, Norway
2014 Nadia Matringe, EUI, Italy
2012 Christopher Colvin, Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland
2010 Kevin Tennant, University of Glasgow, UK
2008 Veronica Binda, Bocconi University, Itlay
2006 Brita Lundström, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Sweden
2004 Anna Spadiavecchia, LSE, UK
2002 Kees Boersma, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
2000 Suzan Becker, Bonn University, Germany
1998 Knut Sogner, Norway
1996 Ludovic Cailluet, University of Lyon II, France and Mark Spoerer, University of Bonn, Germany
EBHA Lifetime Award
The EBHA Lifetime Award aims to recognize world-class research for its originality and significance. The award is aimed at scholars that have an outstanding track-record in business history in the following three ways: they have successfully enlarged knowledge and the scope of business history into areas of scholarly and linked to current problems; they have made outstanding contributions in the development and enlargement of the discipline and the research community in Europe and around the world; and their research is well-recognised and has been successful in influencing other disciplinary areas.
This is an award given at the discretion of the EBHA Council, approved by majority and is only attributed in years when the Council considers pertinent. Objectivity, independence, and standards of excellence inform the selection process, as well as a shared conviction that the selected scholars have played a fundamental and unequivocal role in the advancement of the discipline of business history. The award is nominal and is given to the winner at the EBHA Annual Congress.
Past recipients
2023 - The EBHA Lifetime Award was presented to Professor Emeritus Patrick Fridenson (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) at the 26th Annual Congress of the EBHA in Oslo, August 2023.
2022 - The Inaugural EBHA Lifetime Award winner is Professor Geoffrey Jones (Harvard Business School). The award was presented at the 25th Annual Congress of the EBHA in Madrid, June 2022.
