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.

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 an international Management Committee organised from the LSE, but entirely independent of LSE’s Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. The Committee decides the outcome of the competition on the advice of an international, independent and anonymous panel of selectors who produce detailed reports on the shortlisted books

The committee currently comprises the following.

  • Richard Bradley (LSE)
  • Jim Brown (Toronto)
  • Nancy Cartwright (Durham)
  • Hasok Chang (Cambridge)
  • Roman Frigg (Convenor, LSE)
  • Sabina Leonelli (Exeter)
  • Helen Longino (Stanford)

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 £10,000. 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.

Lakatos Award 2026 – Call for nominations

The London School of Economics and Political Science invites nominations for the 2026 Lakatos Award. For the 2026 Award, books published in English with an imprint from 2020 to 2025, inclusive, are eligible.

Nominations must be received by Monday 1 September 2025.

The award is given for a monograph in the philosophy of science broadly construed, either single authored or co-authored, published in English. Anthologies and edited collections are not eligible. Any person of recognised standing within the philosophy of science or an allied field may nominate a book. Nominations must include a statement, of between one and three paragraphs, explaining the nominator’s reasons for regarding the book prize-worthy. Self-nominations are not allowed.

The nominator should write to the Lakatos Award Administrator with “Lakatos Award nomination” in the subject header. These letters will be passed on to the selectors if the book is shortlisted.

Please send nominations, or any queries, to the Lakatos Award Administrator Tom Hinrichsen (t.a.hinrichsen@lse.ac.uk).