Presented by the New York Times, the Sidney Awards highlight some of the year’s best long-form writing. The winning essays and writers are chosen by a panel of experts including Hilton Als of the New York Times, Ed Yong of The Atlantic, and others. The winners receive a mesmerising swirl award, designed and handmade in Sydney by Dinosaur Designs.
Winners are selected for their ability to communicate complex issues in an accessible manner that is intellectually challenging and politically informed. They are also recognised for the courage and resourcefulness with which they have pursued their reporting, and for the significant impact that their work has had on public policy change.
Established by a bequest from Isabel B. Oberman in memory of her husband, Irving, the prize is awarded annually to the school’s most outstanding paper on one of seven current legal subjects: bankruptcy; constitutional law and equal justice under the law; family law; intellectual property; labor law; and legal history. For more details visit the Irving Oberman Memorial Award webpage.
In the spirit of the late Sidney Hillman, who championed a better America through investigative journalism and deep storytelling, the Foundation honours journalists who pursue this vision by rewarding exceptional reporting that promotes social justice. The monthly prize carries a $500 cash award, a bottle of union-made wine, and a certificate designed by New Yorker cartoonist Edward Sorel.
The University of Sydney has excelled at this year’s Eureka Prizes, Australia’s ‘Science Oscars’. Professor Mengyu Li of the School of Physics has won the Eureka Prize for Early Career Research; Prof Kate Jolliffe from the School of Chemistry has won a Lifetime Achievement Eureka Prize; and the Sensory Conservation Team led by Dr Richard Ho has won the Eureka Prize for Science Engagement.
Sidney Taylor Book Award winner Clare Jackson has a unique ability to take an everyday topic and make it fascinating. Her books about sex and religion in late-seventeenth century Scotland, which she researched during her Junior Research Fellowship at Sidney, have won major literary prizes. Her latest, ‘The Duchess’s Daughters: Royalist Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Scotland’ has won the 2024 Dame Mary Gilmore Literary Award.