Reflecting on the inaugural year of the First Book Prize

Last year, we launched the First Book Prize for early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The award, now in its second year, aims to support emerging scholars by providing broad dissemination for their first monograph.

The 10 winners from the award’s first cohort will have their debut book published fully open access—with all fees waived—alongside hardback publication, tackling subjects from ageing and migration to decolonization and digital archives in the Global South.

To celebrate the prize being open for submissions once again, we speak to some of the individuals who made its inaugural year possible below.

Professor Madhu Krishnan

Chair of the Prize Committee for 2025

“This is a thrilling new initiative that champions the transformative power of humanities and social science research, which enables us to understand our world and its complexities in fundamental ways. At a time when the higher education landscape and such research are both under ever-increasing pressure, the OUP First Book Prize will provide a global platform for excellent and original research from the next generation of scholars.”

Jack McNichol, Acquisition Editor at OUP:

“I’ve had a fantastic year leading on the First Book Prize, and can’t quite believe that we’re already at the point of seeking applications for the 2026 award.

“It has been really rewarding to work with colleagues from across OUP to deliver this new initiative, and the reaction from the winners on hearing the news has been encouraging and inspiring. We hope this prize will really make a difference to their academic careers and the audiences they can reach with their work, and I’m looking forwarding to providing these opportunities to a new group of excellent scholars this year.”

Rebecca Lane

Senior Publisher in Open Access at OUP

“By making monographs open access, we break down barriers to knowledge and broaden the global impact of research, as open access means vital scholarship is freely available to all.”

Kaoutar Ghilani, 2025 First Book Prize winner:

“In a sense, this prize represents not only an important change for OUP and its active recognition of interdisciplinarity, but also a powerful way to make innovative research reach a wider public through the open access agreement. It is a powerful way to both recognize and make visible research projects that would otherwise have had to restrain their innovative approach to fit within already existing boxes.”

The criteria for submission and list of materials to be submitted for the 2026 prize remain the same as last year. Applications will be judged on the quality and originality of the research, and we will continue our focus on projects which are interdisciplinary and address complex societal problems. This may involve direct impact for real-world problems, deepening our understanding of societal problems or questions, or placing them within a wider context.

Applications for the First Book Prize 2026 can be made here until the end of January 2026.