Prizes, Grants, and Bursaries

Society for Italian Studies (SIS) Prize and British Italian Society (BIS) Prize 

Current Edition (2023-24) – Submissions are open

If you teach in a British or Irish university, a reminder that the deadline for submission of essays to the British Italian Society Essay Prizes (run by the Society for Italian Studies) this year is on 19th July 2024, 5 pm (BST).

The competition is open to undergraduate students taking Italian as one of their subjects until their final year and to postgraduate students (MA, MRes, MPhil, PhD) in Italian Studies who passed their work (final year essay/dissertation/thesis) during the academic year just completed (2023-24).

Please note that all submissions must be anonymised and each University/institution is asked to send only ONE entrant per category.

Supervisors should send the entries to Dr Mara Josi (SIS Prize Coordinator) at mj502@cantab.ac.uk

Please read the prizes’ description below for further submission details and eligibility.



Prize Descriptors

The SIS runs two Prize Competitions – in alternate years – for work in Italian Studies at British and Irish Universities. The competition follows the same pattern for both prizes.

The Society for Italian Studies (SIS) and the British Italian Society (BIS) Prize aim to raise the profile of Italian Studies at British and Irish Universities both at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels, and to reward the excellent research being carried out in the discipline.

  • The SIS (Society for Italian Studies) Prize for Undergraduate and Postgraduate work (in odd years, e.g. 2025, 2027, etc.)
  • The BIS (British Italian Society) Prize for Undergraduate and Postgraduate work (in even years, e.g. 2024, 2026, etc.)

The competition is open to undergraduate students taking Italian as one of their subjects until their final year and to postgraduate students (MA, MRes, MPhil, PhD) in Italian Studies who passed their work (final year essay/dissertation/thesis) during the academic year just completed. The subject matter is confined to disciplines in the humanities and social sciences relating to Italy, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Postgraduate entrants can apply only once in the course of their degree and with one piece of work.

Two prizes are available:

  1. One prize of £250 for final year Undergraduates
  2. One prize of £500 for Postgraduates

At the awarding panel’s discretion, a runner-up prize of £100 may be awarded for Undergraduates and a runner-up prize of £200 for Postgraduates. In case of joint winners/runners-up, each amount will be split equally.

Each University/Institution in the UK and Ireland is invited to submit ONE candidate only for each category: a: Undergraduate, b: Postgraduate or both, following a pre-selection process, conducted in each case by the Italian Department (or equivalent) in consultation with their colleagues in Italian Studies or in other departments as appropriate; i.e. each University can submit maximum 1 UG and 1 PG entrant (either MA, MPhil or PhD entrant).

  1. Undergraduate Prize

To be considered for the Undergraduate Prize, the work must have been awarded a first class mark (70 or above).

The supervisor/module convenor will submit two pdf files:

  1. The entrant’s final year essay (up to 5,000 words) or dissertation (up to 10,000 words) as a pdf file, with word count. This file should be anonymized (without reference to the student’s name, supervisor nor Institution and without the marker’s comments).
  2. a separate file with the marksheet, inclusive of feedback and mark.

We accept longer submissions for Undergraduate dissertations (up to 12,000 words) only where this is the required length in the Institution where the work is submitted.

  1. Postgraduate Prize

EITHER: The supervisor of Taught MA candidates should submit one pdf file:

  1. their dissertation as a pdf file, with word count, up to 15,000 words in length. This file should be anonymized (without reference to the student’s name, supervisor nor Institution).

OR: The supervisor of MRes/MPhil/PhD candidates should submit two pdf files:

  1. One with the title of the thesis, list of content, a short abstract (max. two A4 pages) detailing the context and methodology of the thesis, and the bibliography. This file should be anonymized (without reference to the student’s name, supervisor nor Institution).
  2. Another file with the submission – typically a chapter – of no more than 15,000 words in length, with word count. (If a chapter longer than 15,000 words is submitted, the judges will only read the first 15,000 words). This file should be anonymized (without reference to the student’s name, supervisor nor Institution).

All work must have been passed (at exams board or viva) during the academic year just completed. We accept work submitted during the previous academic year, when the awarding exams board or viva took place during the academic year just completed. Doctoral students must have passed the viva (even if with corrections) by the time of the application. In all cases, the submitted piece of work must be completed (not in draft form), unpublished, and not be under consideration for publication.

Work may be submitted in English or Italian.

Submissions are made by the supervisor, and not directly by the student.

All submissions (both UG & PG) must be accompanied by a cover email confirming the student’s name and email address, the degree for which they were registered and when they completed it, the supervisor’s name, and, if relevant, the type of UG project (final year essay or dissertation). We cannot accept entries without the cover email, or resubmissions.

The awarding panel is made up of members of the SIS Executive Committee.

For more information, please contact Dr. Mara Josi (SIS Prize Coordinator) at mj502@cantab.ac.uk.

Past Winners

2023

Postgraduate Prize:

Winner: SARA PARISI, University of Strathclyde, PhD Thesis Title: ‘Writing in Images: Leonardo Sciascia and the Visual Arts’.

Runner-up: LAURA ALBERTINI, University of Leicester, PhD Thesis Title: ‘Itineraries of Landscape Responsibility in Paolo Rumiz’s Travel Writing on Italy’.

Undergraduate Prize:

Joint winners: ABIGAIL COCKS, University of Manchester, Dissertation Title: ‘The Renaissance Dialogue: Representations of Women’s Voices in Early Modern Venice’); CASSANDRA PHILLIPS, University of Leeds, Dissertation Title: ‘Female Figures from Dante Commedia with new materials’).

Runner-up: GRETA PARLA, University College of London, Dissertation Title: ‘Looking through separate rooms: the literary and non-literary influences behind Pier Vittorio Tondelli’s Camere separate’.

2022

Postgraduate Prize:

Winner: FABIO SIMONETTI, University of Reading; PhD Thesis Title: Encounters in Wartime Italy: British Soldiers and Italian Civilians, 1943-1944

Runner-up: ELLEN SHARMAN, MA in Gender, Society and Representation, University College London; MA Dissertation Title: Cultivating masculinity: The expression of masculine identity in the gardens of Cardinal Ippolito II at the Villa d’Este, 1550-72

Undergraduate Prize:

Winner: LOUISE ROSSETTI, BA in Liberal Arts University of Warwick; Dissertation Title: ‘From Mimesis to Poesis: Poetry, Nature, and Subjugation. Uncovering the ideological foundations of sustainability through Dante’s Divina Commedia and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata’.

Joint Runners-up: ESME HODSON, Univ. of St. Andrews, Research Essay title: ‘Spectacular women: recovering the feminine in Elena Ferrante’s I giorni dell’abbandono’; EVA LOVEJOY, Univ. of Birmingham, Dissertation title: ‘Motherhood and plasticity in the life and writing of Goliarda Sapienza’

2020

Postgraduate Prize:

Winner: REBECCA BOWEN, PhD in Italian Studies, University of Oxford, PhD Thesis Title: ‘Figures of Love: Amor from Antiquity to the Italian Middle Ages’

Runner-up: GIANMARCO MANCOSU, PhD in Italian Studies, University of Warwick, PhD Thesis title: ‘DecolonItaly. Decolonization and National Identity in Post-War Italy (1945–1960)’

Undergraduate Prize:

Joint winners: ELLIE BENNET, BA Modern Languages, University of Exeter, Dissertation title: ‘La fertilità è un bene comune’: Infertility, Surrogacy and Childlessness in Contemporary Italian Romantic Comedy; LIVIA RUSSELL, BA Modern Languages, University of Cambridge, Dissertation title: ‘Contact and intimacy: Mario Giacomelli’s photo-poetic encounters’

Runner-up: CLAUDIA HALFORD (BA in Italian and Spanish, UCL), Dissertation title: ‘Calvino and Grossi, continuity in difference. Representing alienation and the quest for self in I nostri antenati and Pugni’

2019

Postgraduate Prize:

Joint winners: FLORA DEROUNIAN, University of Bristol, PhD Thesi Title: ‘Representations and Oral Histories of Working Women in Post-World War Two Italy (1945-1965)’; LUCA ZENOBI, Oxford University, PhD Thesis Title: ‘Borders and the politics of space in late medieval Italy: Milan, Venice and their territories in the 15th C.’

Runner-up: AMBRA ANELOTTI, Royal Hollaway, Univ. of London, PhD Thesis Title: ‘The dissemination of Orlando Furioso: Ariosto and his poems in Southern Italy (1532-1599)’

Undergraduate Prize:

Winner: ESME GARLAKE, BA Modern Languages, University of Cambridge, Dissertation Title: Ephemeral Journeys: Tracing the Lives of Early Twentieth-Century Italian Postcards

Joint Runners-up: ALICE CRIPPS, University of Kent, BA, Dissertation title: ‘Representations of Motherhood in Italian Visual Culture from the Fascist ventennio to the Modern Day; BENJAMIN ROWE, University of Bristol, BA, Dissertation title: ‘Degradation and Regeneration: An Examination of the Causes of Le Vele’s Demise’

2018

Postgraduate Prize:

Joint winners: RACHELE BEZZINI, Univ. of Sussex, PhD Thesis Tile ‘Boundary-making in an immigrant social space: Albanian-Italian and Albanian-Romanian couples in Italy’; REBECCA WALKER, Univ. of St. Andrews, MLitt on ‘Bodily Archives: Urban Space and the Material Body in Elsa Morante’s La storia (1974)’

2017

Postgraduate Prize:

Winner: MICAL NELKEN, Univ. College London, MLitt on ‘Race and Identity in Republican Italian Schools, 1943-69’