SPS student wins prestigious Political Studies Association essay prize
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School of Social and Political Science (SPS) student Phoebe Lagard has won the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Parliaments annual Undergraduate Essay Competition.
Phoebe won the competition for writing the year’s best essay on parliaments and legislatures.
Phoebe was a student on the module Parliamentary Studies, which was convened by Dr Alan Convery in 2022/23, and Dr Marc Geddes previously and in 2023/24.
Phoebe, a student within the Politics and International Relations (PIR) subject area, wrote on the topic ‘To what extent are parliamentary questions in Holyrood gendered?’.
The judges said: 'This is an exceptional essay, far beyond undergraduate standards. There is excellent engagement with theory and an outstanding and sophisticated methodology with a nuanced discussion of its strengths and weaknesses.'
This is the second year in a row that a PIR student has won this prestigious accolade, with Jack Liddall winning in 2022. Jack has since gone on to a PhD scholarship to study inter-parliamentary relations at the University of Cambridge.
PIR's Parliamentary Studies module won the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) course of the year prize in 2021/22.