RTPI’s awards for research excellence 2025 are now open for submissions, with two categories renamed in honour of passed members.
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The competition has renamed two categories in honour of two academics who passed away last year
The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence 2025 is now open for entries.
The awards recognise the best spatial planning research conducted at RTPI-accredited schools.
Two of the categories in the Awards for Excellence 2025 have been renamed
The Tony Crook Award for Early Career Research and the Patsy Healey Award for Academic Excellence have both been named in honour of two members of the planning research community who passed away in 2024.
The former is named after Professor Tony Crook, who has been a member of the RTPI since 1965, and has served as a trustee up until he passed away.
The latter honours Professor Patsy Healey, who was the third person and first woman to be awarded the RTPI gold medal, and was the first Senior Editor of Planning Theory & Practice.
The awards, alongside the rest, highlight and commend the implications of academic research on policy and practice, and the contributions from planning consultancies with regards to research. The awards also promote the importance of planning research.
The awards have been running for 10 years
The award categories are as follows:
- Patsy Healey Award for Academic Excellence – An award for established researchers, split into two groups: Academic staff employed by RTPI accredited schools, and academic staff that are not employed by RTPI-accredited schools, but are a member of RTPI.
- Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement – An award for conducting or communicating high-quality planning research to audiences outside of academia. This award is open to all who qualify for the Practitioner Research Award and the Academic Excellence Award.
- Tony Crook Award for Early Career Research – An award aimed at researchers at the start of their careers, either currently doing or are within five years of having completed their PhD.
- Student Dissertation Award – An award aimed at students currently working on, or who have recently completed a non-research university degree, open to undergraduate and non-research postgraduate students enrolled in RTPI-accredited universities, those who have completed an course in an RTPI-accredited university between January 2024 and May 2025, and RTPI members who have completed or are enrolled in an undergraduate or non-research postgraduate course between 1 January 2024 and 18 May 2025.
- Practitioner Research Award – An award open to non-academic organisations who are conducting valuable research to inform planning policy or practice, such as planning consultancies, charities, and social enterprises.
Entries for the awards opened on March 18, and will remain open until May 18, with judging taking place in the following July. The awards will then be presented by president of RTPI, Helen Fadipe, at the UK Ireland Planning Research Conference in Belfast in September.
Submissions and entries for the awards can be made on the RTPI website.
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