MAE-MAT Early Career Researcher Paper Award 2024 - Now open for submissions

27-Oct-2023

The Editorial Collective at Medicine Anthropology Theory (MAT) and the Board of Medical Anthropology Europe (MAE) are excited to announce the third cycle of the MAE-MAT Early Career Researcher Paper Prize. Through this award, we aim to recognise and promote the outstanding work of junior scholars in the field of medical anthropology and allied fields. The winning paper will be published in MAT in the Autumn of 2024. The winner will be expected to serve on the jury for awarding the next cycle of the prize.

We welcome submissions from early career scholars from all parts of the world. Co-authored papers are acceptable, but all authors must meet the eligibility criteria below.

The deadline for submission is 15 December 2023 (EXTENDED TO 12 JANUARY 2024, 12 noon GMT).

Papers should be submitted through the MAT submission system. Please select the ‘MAE-MAT Early Career Paper’ category when submitting your paper. We expect to announce the winning paper in or after April 2024.

Submitted papers should be accompanied by a short cover letter (less than one page) stating that all authors meet the eligibility criteria. Authors ought to attach their cover letters as an additional file when submitting their manuscripts through the link above.

Eligibility and Evaluation Criteria:

Authors should be current PhD students or be within 2 years of having obtained their PhD, with exceptions for parental leave and other caring responsibilities (please state in cover letter).
Papers should be ethnographic in focus and draw primarily on MA, MSc, or PhD research.
All papers that involve human subjects research will be asked to affirm that the research underwent an ethics review process in advance of the research being undertaken. If a submission does not have ethics approval, the author should discuss why ethics approvals were not needed in their cover letter.
Papers should be written in clear language, have a concise conceptual argument, involve primary research, engage with core debates and themes in medical anthropology, and make an innovative contribution to the field.
Papers should be no longer than 10,000 words including references.
Papers should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Please see MAT’s submission pages for more information about how to prepare your manuscript for anonymous review.
MAT is an English-language journal. We encourage authors who speak English as a second language to apply for the MAE-MAT Early Career Research Prize. The winning manuscript will be selected on the basis of the quality of the ideas, evidence and argument, in addition to its fit with the MAT journal scope and aims. Grammatical, spelling and other common language errors will not be considered part of the selection criteria. Should the winning paper require additional English language editing, we will provide this service free of charge and an editor will work closely with the author to ensure the manuscript meets publication standards. If you expect that your manuscript would benefit from enhanced English language editing, please indicate so in your cover letter. Requests for this additional support, as indicated in the cover letter, will have no impact on the review process. We are grateful to the support of the Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA) at the University of Edinburgh for funding this initiative.

Jury panelists include Lotte Segal (University of Edinburgh), Marlee Tichenor (University of Edinburgh), Upul Kumara Wickramasinghe (Durham University), Ursula Probst (Freie Universität Berlin), Mafe Olarte-Sierra (Universität Wien), Magdalena Góralska (Rutgers University), and Giorgio Brocco (Universität Wien).

Resources to help prepare your paper

In June 2022, the MAT Editors hosted a virtual Q&A session about the MAE-MAT Prize and publication more generally, during the Edinburgh Center for Medical Anthropology Global Mental Health Conference. A recording for this session is available online here.

The best resource to help you prepare your paper is to go over the previous prize winner’s papers. Here are links to Dr Laura Meek’s 2020-2021 MAT-MAE Prize Paper, “The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and the Impossible Subject” and Dr Upul Kumara Wickramasinghe’s 2022-2023 MAT-MAE Prize Paper, “Screening Charity Recipients: Health Philanthropy, Medical Diagnosis, and Kidney Disease Prevention in Sri Lanka.”

The MAT/MAE Board will also hold a new virtual Q&A session about the prize and publication more generally on November 8th at 13:00 GMT. Please do take a look at the recording of last year’s Q&A session and a careful read of the previous prize-winning papers before the Q&A session to help formulate your questions for the November session.

Please register for the Zoom session in the following link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mae-mat-early-career-researcher-paper-prize-tickets-746946636497. A recording of the session will also be made available online afterwards.