Herman Diederiks Prize

Dedicated to crime history and penal justice articles

Ongoing call

Deadline for application

30 September 2026

The Foundation administers and awards a range of prizes funded through bequests made by distinguished deceased scholars or by associations that entrust it with these responsibilities, relying on the quality of its selection procedures and the rigor of its management.

In tribute to its founder and first president, Herman Diederiks, the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice (now acting as the editorial board of the journal Crime, History & Societies/Crime, Histoire & Sociétés), with the support of the FMSH, awards a prize for an original article in the field of the history of crime and criminal justice written by an early-career scholar.

The prize recognizes an article written by an early-career researcher (a doctoral candidate or a scholar who obtained their PhD no more than three years prior to the date of submission of the article to the journal). Within the specified field, all topics are eligible.

The article must be written in either French or English and must not have been previously published.

The winning article will be published promptly in the journal Crime, Histoire & Sociétés/Crime, History & Societies, and the prize winner will receive a €1,000 research grant from the FMSH.

Submitted articles must:

present original research combining new empirical findings with broader historiographical, methodological, and/or theoretical reflections;
open up new avenues of research or renew approaches within existing fields.

The editorial board of the journal acts as a jury: