Social Policy Association

The Association gives out its Special Recognition Award (SPA) on an annual basis to people who are due to retire within a year or who have already retired from the academic profession and who has either "made a sustained contribution to research in the field of social policy", "made a sustained contribution to teaching and learning of the subject ...", "had a sustained impact on political process/discourse ...", or "achieved esteem measured in terms of journal editing/establishing, promotion of social policy within other social sciences, membership of research councils or similar bodies."[4] Beginning in 2016, the Association also makes an International SPA to recognise scholars outside the United Kingdom.[4]

• 2016: Professor John Clarke (Open University) and Professor Gillian Parker (University of York). The International Special Recognition Award has given out for the first time, to Professor Kathryn Edin, Bloomberg Professor at Johns Hopkins University.[4]
• 2015: Professor Lesley Doyal (Emeritus Professor, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol); Professor Rudolf Klein (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Bath); Professor Robert Pinker (Emeritus Professor of Social Administration, London School of Economics).[5]
• 2014: Professor Gary Craig (Professor of Community Development and Social Justice, Durham University); Professor Caroline Glendinning (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of York); Professor John Veit-Wilson (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Northumbria University, and Visiting Professor in Sociology, Newcastle University).[6]
• 2013: Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby, FBA, OBE (Professor of Social Policy, University of Kent); Professor Ian Gough (Visiting Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Bath); Professor Bob Deacon (Emeritus Professor of International Social Policy, University of Sheffield).[7]
• 2012: Alan Deacon (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, University of Leeds); Professor David Byrne (School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University); Fiona Williams, OBE (Emeritus Professor, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds); Nicholas Deakin (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, Birmingham University).[8]

Before 2012, the SPA made Lifetime Achievement Awards to academics.[9] The first of these was awarded in 2006 to Adrian Sinfield.[10]

• 2011: Professor Jane Lewis (Chair in Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science).[11]
• 2010: Professors Jan Pahl (University of Kent) and Ruth Lister (University of Loughborough).[12]
• 2009: Michael Hill.[9]
• 2008: David Donnison; Peter Townsend.[9]
• 2007: Jonathan Bradshaw; Hilary Land; Alan Walker.[9]
• 2006: Adrian Sinfield.[9]

• 2015: Rev. Paul Nicolson (awarded as Best Non-Academic Award).[9]
• 2014: Anna Coote (New Economics Foundation); Carey Oppenheim (Early Intervention Foundation) (awarded as Best Non-Academic Award).[9]
• 2012: Richard Best, Baron Best, OBE (awarded as Outstanding Contribution to Social Policy Debate, Analysis and/or Practice Award).[8]
• 2011: Simon Duffy (Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform); Dexter Whitfield (Director, European Services Strategy Unit, University of Adelaide).[11]
• 2010: Karl Wilding and the Research Team at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.[12]
• 2009: Patricia Hollis.[9]
• 2008: Katherine Rake.[9]