Wiley, the publisher of the British Journal of Industrial Relations, have kindly agreed to sponsor a £250 prize for the best written conference paper at the 2022 BUIRA annual conference.
This award is a distinction given by BUIRA to the best doctoral student paper presented at the annual BUIRA conference. Following acceptance of an initial abstract, doctoral students are invited to submit papers ahead of the conference that proceed through a blind review process to determine the winner of the competition. The award is typically accompanied by a £250 prize. The recipient is invited to receive the award during the President’s address held at the beginning of the conference.
Doctoral students interested in submitting a paper for this award must have had a paper accepted for presentation at the annual conference and must be a fully paid-up student member of BUIRA.
To be considered for the award:
· Papers must be sole authored;
· Papers should be no longer than 4,000 words, not including references, abstract and appendices. They should be in 12 point font, double spaced with page numbers at the bottom of each page
· Papers should begin with a cover page containing the title and an abstract of no more than 200 words outlining the purpose of the paper, the methods used and the main conclusion/ argument
· Papers can be empirical or theoretical and can cover any general area of employment relations. They should be structured in an appropriate way (see below)
Papers should, in general, be clearly structured and contain:
· Introduction – that sets out the focus of the paper, its relevance and key research questions
· Review – a review of key background literature, the limitations of current debate and the rationale and contribution of the paper (theoretical and historical essays will tend to be structured as an extended review)
· Methods – an account of the methods used, why such methods were appropriate and how data were collated and analysed. Quantitative papers should make it clear what techniques were used and set out key measures and variables (dependent, independent, controls etc)
· Findings – should analyse relevant data in a way that clearly seeks to address the main research questions/ themes of the paper. Where interview quotations are used they should follow recognised conventions. Likewise, quantitative data should be reported in an appropriate tabular format and include key tests of significance.
· Discussion and conclusions – this section should draw together the main findings of the paper and relate them back to the key questions animating the paper and how this contributes to wider debate (the conclusion should not simply summarise the findings)
· References – to be presented in Harvard format.
The deadline for the submission of full papers is: 3rd June 2022
Papers should be sent to: admin@buira.org and will be blind reviewed by all members of the committee.