The University of Sydney offers a range of prizes designed to recognize student academic excellence in various disciplines. Most require submission of written work on a selected topic and can be awarded as either medals or cash prizes. Some also require that the submitted writing be published in a journal and may carry a prestigious Sydney Prize seal (see below).

The 2024 Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize is open to all writers, national and international. This year’s judges, Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop and Sara Saleh, have chosen a shortlist of eight pieces of outstanding short fiction. The winning writer will receive $5000 and their short story will be published in Overland, while two runners-up will each be awarded $750.

Sidney Altman won the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery that ribonuclease-P is an enzyme that can degrade RNA, even without an associated protein. This result undercut the dogma that molecules could only carry information, like RNA, or catalyze chemical reactions, like proteins, but not both. It was a key step in the development of molecular genetics and the understanding of how cells make and break their own proteins.

In 2018, York University Professor Edward Jones-Imhotep received the Sidney Edelstein Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of the history of technology, for his book The Unreliable Nation: Disasters and Technological Failure in Cold War Canada. The book examines the role of natural and technological hazards in a period marked by profound uncertainty and instability.

Established in memory of renowned Jewish children’s librarian Sydney Taylor, the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award is given annually for the best manuscript in the field of Jewish children’s literature. While AJL cannot guarantee publication of the manuscript, this competition—and its prestige—has served as an important springboard for many fine new children’s authors.

Winners of the Sydney Taylor Prize will have their manuscript reviewed by a panel of experts, which may include members of the AJL Board of Editors and other scholars in the field. If the panel decides that the manuscript is worthy of publication, it will be offered for review by publishers who specialize in the subject area covered by the submission. The authors will be informed of the decision within six months of its receipt by AJL.

This prize is awarded to a graduate student whose dissertation research has contributed significantly to the study of early Christianity. The work should demonstrate the highest standards of scholarship and be of broad interest to the wider community. The award is made available through the generosity of donors.