11 July 2023

On 10 July, the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, short: KHMW) opened the registration for the Jan Brouwer Thesis Prizes 2024. You may have received this announcement directly from the KHMW. This year the KHMW awards thesis prizes in ten scientific/scholarly fields, previously in eight fields. Each single prize amounts to € 3000.

Six of the fields are relevant to the Faculty of Humanities:

• Philosophy
• Religious Studies &Theology
• Linguistics & Literary Studies
• History
• Sociology & Anthropology
• Communication & Media Studies.

The KHMW imposes several conditions on the nomination for the prizes:

• The prizes are intended for master's theses completed and approved of by the supervisor(s) in the academic year 2022/2023Theses may be written in either Dutch or English.
• A faculty may nominate a maximum of three theses per category.
• A thesis may only be nominated in one category.
• The KHMW only accepts theses submitted by the faculty. Theses that are nominated directly at the KHMW by individual staff members will not be considered by the jury.

Do you wish to nominate a thesis?

The deadline for submitting the theses at KHMW is 6 October. If you wish to nominate a thesis in one of the categories relevant to the Faculty of Humanities, please notify Job Weststrate of the department Policy and Management Support – Educational Advice and Quality Assurance (Dutch abbreviation: BAS/O&K) at the latest on Friday 22 September at 17:00, per email to oenk@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Please indicate in which category you would like the thesis to compete. If more than three nominations are submitted in a category, the faculty will make a selection based on the judgment of a small selection committee formed for that purpose. That committee will consist of staff members with relevant expertise. Staff members who nominate a thesis do not have a seat on the selection committee. You may receive a reminder about the price of the KHMW after 22 September, but it will then no longer be possible to submit.

For selection the following is required:

1. a digital version of the nominated master's thesis,
2. the written assessment of the thesis, i.e. the thesis assessment form,
3. a (short) curriculum vitae of the nominee and a transcript of grades of his/her/their master's degree,
4. any further additional information that might be relevant for the award of the prize (for example, the direct social impact of the thesis research, or a particularly complex context in which source research had to be carried out, etc.).

A letter of recommendation from the thesis supervisor/lecturer will only be requested if the thesis is selected for nomination by the faculty.

When the selection is completed, BAS/O&K will issue the nomination on behalf of the faculty via the online form on the Jan Brouwer Thesis Award site. Only theses that are nominated via this route will be considered by the KHMW.