Now in its second year, the Global Souths Hub Best Contribution Prize returns to celebrate bold and insightful work that enriches the field of Global South Studies.
About the Prize
The initiative builds on the success of last year’s award, which recognised Ginbert Permejo Cuaton as the Best Contribution for his blog piece on Exploring Resettlement in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation.
Last year, the judges also highlighted two additional articles of considerable merit:
- Kivdi Koralage‘s From Colonialism to COVID-19: Why Global Health Remains Unequal
- Nancy Owusuaa‘s Navigating Adinkra’s Evolution in the Digital Age: A PhD’s Perspective.
For 2025/26, all pieces published by Global Souths Hub contributors between April 2025 and April 2026 will be entered for consideration.
Global Reach and Interdisciplinary Impact
This year, we published over twenty pieces from our contributors who are based across the globe, exploring themes such as climate change, scientific sovereignty, Indigenous knowledge and more.
The prize forms part of the Hub’s broader mission to amplify overlooked narratives and promote accessible, high-quality scholarship beyond traditional academic publishing.
Learn more about our contributors.
2026 Judging Panel Confirmed!
On the 2026 judging panel are last year’s winner, Ginbert Permejo Cuaton, who is a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University specialising in climate change; scholar activist and interdisciplinary postdoctoral researcher Silas Udenze; and Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Aberdeen and Academic Editor at Third World Quarterly Ritu Vij.
Ginbert comments that:
“The Global Souths Hub is an amazing platform dedicated for early career scholars to showcase emerging and critical research from and in the Global South by southern scholars. Recognising its best contributions not only spotlights the authors but also foregrounds their important scholarly contributions that may have global implications for critical issues like sustainability, climate change, and just development. I am absolutely thrilled to be part of this endeavour.”
Ginbert Permejo Cuaton, Lingnan University
While Silas notes the importance of the prize:
“Great ideas often emerge from places and perspectives that do not always get global recognition. The Global Souths Hub Best Contribution Prize helps bring those voices forward, celebrating work that reshapes conversations and connects scholarship to lived realities. It is a meaningful step toward more inclusive and impactful knowledge.”
Silas Udenze, University of Aberdeen
What are our judges looking for?
Our judges are looking for pieces that address contemporary issues in meaningful ways, particularly those that offer new knowledge, perspectives and ideas, that are accessible, written in an engaging manner and offer original research.
Read more on how to craft an impactful blog piece.
And watch Global Souths Hub Editors Zara Qadir’s and Mira Mookerjee’s presentation for BISA virtual conference on how to Unlock the power of academic blogging: Storytelling, tips and tools.
When will the Winner be Announced?
The winner of the Global Souths Best Contributor Prize will be announced in May 2026 and will receive £400. You can keep up to date with the judging process by following us on:
The 2026 Judging Panel
Ginbert Permejo Cuaton
Ginbert Permejo Cuaton examines social policy issues on disasters, displacements, and climate actions in Southeast Asia, specialising in the Philippines. His works have been cited in globally important policy documents like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report (2022) and the UNFAO’s Women and Men in Small-scale Fisheries and Aquaculture in Asia (2022). He is a final year PhD Candidate in Environmental Science, Policy and Management at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), supervised by Dr. Masaru YARIME (HKUST) and Dr. Yvone SU (York University). He will serve as a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University of Hong Kong starting August 2024.
Ritu Vij
Ritu Vij is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Aberdeen and an Academic Editor for Third World Quarterly. Her primary areas of research and teaching are in political economy and international political theory. In the past few years, she has principally engaged the problem of precarity in International Relations and Social Theory. Previously, she has explored heterotopias of homelessness through work produced by artists and rough sleepers in Tokyo; cinematic narratives of precarity in Japan; and engaged anthropological work on ‘Precarious Writings’.
Silas Udenze
Silas Udenze is an interdisciplinary postdoctoral researcher at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. His research interests cut across social movements, digital activism and memory, digital ethnography, African studies, and qualitative methods. He has published in top peer-reviewed journals such as Media, War and Conflict, Memory Studies, Communication and the Public. He is a Research Fellow at the Center of Digital Anthropology (CDA), University College London. He is a member of the Digital Ethnography Working Group (DEWG) at Rutgers University, United States.
