The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing was established in 2012 to recognise excellence in Australian science writing. The annual prize of A$7,000 is awarded to the best short non-fiction piece of science fiction with the aim of a general audience. Two runners up are awarded $1,500 each.
The prize is named in honour of Australia's first Nobel laureates, father and son team William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg.[1] The prize is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and the UNSW Faculty of Science.
An associated anthology, The Best Australian Science Writing (NewSouth Publishing)[2] collects the best of the year's science writing.
Winners
| Year | Author | Work | Source | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Jo Chandler | Feeling the Heat (excerpt) | Melbourne University Publishing | Winner | [3] |
| Ashley Hay | "The Aussie Mozzie Posse" | Good Weekend | Runner Up | [4] | |
| Peter McAllister | "The Evolution of the Inadequate Modern Male" | Australasian Science | Runner Up | [5] | |
| 2013 | Fred Watson | "Here Come the Ubernerds: Planets, Pluto and Prague" | Star-Craving Mad: Tales from a Travelling Astronomer | Winner | [6][7] |
| Gina Perry | "Beyond the Shock Machine" | Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments | Runner Up | [8] | |
| Chris Turney | "Martyrs to Gondwanaland: The Cost of Scientific Exploration" | 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica | Runner Up | [9] | |
| 2014 | Jo Chandler | "Tb and Me: A Medical Souvenir" | The Global Mail | Winner | [10] |
| Frank Bowden | "Eleven Grams of Trouble" | Inside Story | Runner Up | [11] | |
| Peter Meredith | "Weathering the Storm" | Australian Geographic | Runner Up | [12] | |
| 2015 | Christine Kenneally | "The Past May Not Make You Feel Better" | The Invisible History of the Human Race | Winner | [13] |
| Idan Ben-Barak | "Why Aren't We Dead Yet" | Why Aren't We Dead Yet | Runner Up | ||
| Trent Dalton | "Beating the Odds" | The Weekend Australian | Runner Up | ||
| 2016 | Ashley Hay | "The Forest at the Edge of Time" | The Australian Book Review | Winner | |
| Susan Double | "Beautiful Contrivances" | Orchids Australia | Runner Up | ||
| Fiona McMillan | "Lucy's Lullaby: Song for the Ages" | The Australian Book Review | Runner Up | [14] | |
| 2017 | Alice Gordon | "Trace Fossils: The Silence of Ediacara, the Shadow of Uranium" | Griffith Review No. 55 – State of Hope | Winner | [15] |
| Jo Chandler | "Grave Barrier Reef" | The Australian | Runner Up | [16] | |
| Elmo Keep | "The Pyramid at the End of the World" | The Australian | Runner Up | ||
| 2018 | Andrew Leigh | "From Bloodletting to Placebo Surgery" | Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World | Winner | [17] |
| Jo Chandler | "Amid Fear and Guns, Polio Finds a Refuge" | Undark | Runner Up | [17] | |
| Margaret Wertheim | "Radical Dimensions" | Aeon | Runner Up | ||
| 2019 | Melissa Fyfe | "Getting Cliterate" | Good Weekend | Winner | [18] |
| Cameron Muir | "Ghost Species and Shadow Places" | Griffith Review | Runner Up | [18] | |
| Jackson Ryan | "How Crispr Could Save Six Billion Chickens from the Meat Grinder" | CNET | Runner Up | ||
| 2020 | Ceridwen Dovey | "True Grit" | Wired | Winner | [19] |
| Sarah Waples | "Winging It" | The Weekend Australian Magazine | Runner Up | [20] | |
| Kirsten Weir | "The Year I Broke My Brain" | New Scientist | Runner Up | ||
| 2021 | Kirsten Weir | "Covid-19 in Schools: The Perfect Storm" | Scientific American | Winner | |
| Ben Oliver | "The Covid Lab Leak Theory" | Wired | Runner Up | ||
| Anna Funder | "In Praise of the Liberal Arts" | The Guardian | Runner Up | ||
| 2021 | Ceridwen Dovey | "Everlasting Free Fall" | Alexander (app) | Winner | [21] |
| Jo Chandler | "The Covid-climate Collision" | Unspecified | Runner-up | [21] | |
| Jackson Ryan | "To the Dragon Palace and Back" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2022 | Lauren Fuge | "Time Travel and Tipping Points" | Cosmos Magazine | Winner | [22] |
| Olivia Willis | "Spillover in Suburbia" | Unspecified | Runner-up | [22] | |
| Helen Sullivan | "A Syrian Seed Bank's Fight to Survive" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2023 | Nicky Phillips | "Trials of the Heart" | Nature | Winner | [23] |
| Jo Chandler | "Buried Treasure" | Unspecified | Runner-up | [23] | |
| Amalyah Hart | "Model or Monster" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2024 | Cameron Stewart | "Heroes of Zero" | The Weekend Australian | Winner | [24] |
| Dyani Lewis | "The World's Oldest Story Is Flaking Away. Can Scientists Protect It?" | Unspecified | Runner-up | [24] | |
| Amanda Niehaus | "Dog People" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2025 | Tabitha Carvan | "The Unexpected Poetry of PhD Acknowledgements" | Unspecified | Winner | [25] |
| Angus Dalton | "The Night I Accidentally Became a Corpse Flower's Bedside Manservant" | Unspecified | Runner-up | [25] | |
| James Purtill | "Air Conditioning Quietly Changed Australian Life in Just a Few Decades" | Unspecified | Runner-up |
References
- ^ "The UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing". University of New South Wales Press. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
- ^ "The Best Australian Science Writing 2014". Newsouthbooks.com.au. Archived from the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- ^ "Feeling The Heat, Jo Chandler". Melbourne University Publishing. 1 May 2011.
- ^ Hay, Ashley. "The Auzzie Mozzie Posse" (PDF). Ashleyhay.com.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 December 2014. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ^ "The Evolution of the Inadequate Modern Male". Australasian Science.
- ^ "Award: Astronomer wins science writing prize". UNSW Science for society. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
- ^ Fred Watson (2013). Star-Craving Mad. Australia: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781742373768.
- ^ "Behind the Shock Machine". Scribe Publications. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- ^ Chris Turney (25 July 2012). 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica. Text Publishing Company. ISBN 9781921922725.
- ^ "Bitcoin Blockchain IoT". Theglobalmail.org. 24 October 2017.
- ^ "Eleven grams of trouble". Insidestory.org.au. 18 March 2014.
- ^ "Weathering the storm". Australian Geographic. July–August 2013. pp. 39–54. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
- ^ "Winning essay explores genetic testing". SBS News. 28 October 2015. Retrieved 10 May 2025.
- ^ Smith, Deborah (11 November 2016). "Essay on eucalypts wins science writing prize". Newsroom.unsw.edu.au. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
- ^ "Time to Bragg about science writing". Inspiring Research Flinders University. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
- ^ "The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing 2017 Winner Announced". NewSouth Publishing. Archived from the original on 16 February 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
- ^ a b "Leigh wins 2018 Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 7 November 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Fyfe wins 2019 Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 8 November 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
- ^ "Dovey wins 2020 Bragg Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 26 November 2020. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
- ^ "Bragg Prize 2020 Winner Announced". University of Sydney. 26 November 2020. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
- ^ a b "Dovey wins 2020 Bragg Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 26 November 2020. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Fuge wins 2022 Bragg Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Phillips wins 2023 Bragg Prize". Books+Publishing. 13 November 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Stewart wins 2024 Bragg Prize". Books+Publishing. 7 November 2024. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Carvan wins 2025 Bragg Prize for Science Writing". Books+Publishing. 6 November 2025. Retrieved 8 November 2025.
External links
- Official website
- S. G. Tomlin (1979). "Sir William Henry Bragg (1862–1942)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 7. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943.
