The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted, in the form of a book published in English during the current year or the previous five years.

Most recent winners

The 2013 Lakatos Award for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, has been won jointly by Laura Ruetsche of the University of Michigan for her book Interpreting Quantum Theories (Oxford University Press, 2011) and by David Wallace of Oxford University for his book The Emergent Multiverse (Oxford University Press, 2012). Each will win a prize of £7,500.

About the Lakatos Award

The Lakatos Award is in memory of Imre Lakatos and has been endowed by the Latsis Foundation. It is administered by the following committee: John Worrall (Convenor, LSE), Nancy Cartwright (Durham), Hasok Chang (Cambridge), Kostas Gavroglu (Athens), Philip Kitcher (Columbia), Alan Musgrave (Otago), Michael Redhead (Emeritus, Cambridge), and Elliott Sober (Wisconsin-Madison).

The Committee accepts and responds to nominations, creates a shortlist, and makes the Award on the advice of an independent and anonymous panel of Selectors, who are asked to read and comment on all of the shortlisted books.

The value of the Award is £7,500. To take it up, a successful candidate must visit the LSE and deliver a public lecture. The Award may be shared if there are deemed to be two candidates of equal merit. The Committee reserves the right to make no award should it be decided that none of the shortlisted works meets the level of impact and significance required to merit the Award.

— John Worrall
Convener, Lakatos Award Committee

Nominate an Author

Nominations should meet the following requirements.

  1. Publication between 2010-2015. The 2015 Award will be for a book published in English with an imprint from 2010 to 2015 inclusive.
  2. Appropriate nominator. A book may, with the permission of its author, be nominated by any recognised philosopher of science or of a related discipline. The Management Committee is not empowered to nominate books itself but only to respond to outside nominations.
  3. Email nomination The nominator should write to the Lakatos Administrator below, outlining the case for the book’s being considered for the Award, with “LAKATOS AWARD: CONFIDENTIAL” in the subject header. These nomination letters should be brief (no more than three paragraphs in length) and will be passed on to the Selectors if the book is shortlisted.
  4. Deadline: 21 April 2015 before midnight GMT.

Lakatos Award Administrator:

Tom Hinrichsen, t.a.hinrichsen@lse.ac.uk