The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing was established in 2012 to recognise excellence in Australian science writing. The annual prize of A$7,000 is awarded to the best short non-fiction piece of science fiction with the aim of a general audience. Two runners up are awarded $1,500 each.
The prize is named in honour of Australia's first Nobel laureates, father and son team William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg. [1] The prize is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and the UNSW Faculty of Science.
An associated anthology, The Best Australian Science Writing (NewSouth Publishing) [2] collects the best of the year's science writing.
| Year | Author | Work | Source | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Jo Chandler | Feeling the Heat (excerpt) | Melbourne University Publishing | Winner | [3] |
| Ashley Hay | "The Aussie Mozzie Posse" | Good Weekend | Runner Up | [4] | |
| Peter McAllister | "The Evolution of the Inadequate Modern Male" | Australasian Science | Runner Up | [5] | |
| 2013 | Fred Watson | "Here Come the Ubernerds: Planets, Pluto and Prague" | Star-Craving Mad: Tales from a Travelling Astronomer | Winner | [6] [7] |
| Gina Perry | "Beyond the Shock Machine" | Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments | Runner Up | [8] | |
| Chris Turney | "Martyrs to Gondwanaland: The Cost of Scientific Exploration" | 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica | Runner Up | [9] | |
| 2014 | Jo Chandler | "Tb and Me: A Medical Souvenir" | The Global Mail | Winner | [10] |
| Frank Bowden | "Eleven Grams of Trouble" | Inside Story | Runner Up | [11] | |
| Peter Meredith | "Weathering the Storm" | Australian Geographic | Runner Up | [12] | |
| 2015 | Christine Kenneally | "The Past May Not Make You Feel Better" | The Invisible History of the Human Race | Winner | [13] |
| Idan Ben-Barak | "Why Aren't We Dead Yet" | Why Aren't We Dead Yet | Runner Up | ||
| Trent Dalton | "Beating the Odds" | The Weekend Australian | Runner Up | ||
| 2016 | Ashley Hay | "The Forest at the Edge of Time" | The Australian Book Review | Winner | |
| Susan Double | "Beautiful Contrivances" | Orchids Australia | Runner Up | ||
| Fiona McMillan | "Lucy's Lullaby: Song for the Ages" | The Australian Book Review | Runner Up | [14] | |
| 2017 | Alice Gordon | "Trace Fossils: The Silence of Ediacara, the Shadow of Uranium" | Griffith Review No. 55 – State of Hope | Winner | [15] |
| Jo Chandler | "Grave Barrier Reef" | The Australian | Runner Up | [16] | |
| Elmo Keep | "The Pyramid at the End of the World" | The Australian | Runner Up | [17] | |
| 2018 | Andrew Leigh | "From Bloodletting to Placebo Surgery" | Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World | Winner | |
| Jo Chandler | "Amid Fear and Guns, Polio Finds a Refuge" | Undark | Runner Up | ||
| Margaret Wertheim | "Radical Dimensions" | Aeon | Runner Up | [18] | |
| 2019 | Melissa Fyfe | "Getting Cliterate" | Good Weekend | Winner | [19] |
| Cameron Muir | "Ghost Species and Shadow Places" | Griffith Review | Runner Up | ||
| Jackson Ryan | "How Crispr Could Save Six Billion Chickens from the Meat Grinder" | CNET | Runner Up | ||
| 2020 | Ceridwen Dovey | "True Grit" | Wired | Winner | [20] |
| Sarah Waples | "Winging It" | The Weekend Australian Magazine | Runner Up | [21] | |
| Kirsten Weir | "The Year I Broke My Brain" | New Scientist | Runner Up | ||
| 2021 | Kirsten Weir | "Covid-19 in Schools: The Perfect Storm" | Scientific American | Winner | [22] |
| Ben Oliver | "The Covid Lab Leak Theory" | Wired | Runner Up | ||
| Anna Funder | "In Praise of the Liberal Arts" | The Guardian | Runner Up | ||
| 2021 | Ceridwen Dovey | "Everlasting Free Fall" | Alexander (app) | Winner | |
| Jo Chandler | "The Covid-climate Collision" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| Jackson Ryan | "To the Dragon Palace and Back" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2022 | Lauren Fuge | "Time Travel and Tipping Points" | Cosmos Magazine | Winner | |
| Olivia Willis | "Spillover in Suburbia" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| Helen Sullivan | "A Syrian Seed Bank's Fight to Survive" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2023 | Nicky Phillips | "Trials of the Heart" | Nature | Winner | |
| Jo Chandler | "Buried Treasure" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| Amalyah Hart | "Model or Monster" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| 2024 | Cameron Stewart | "Heroes of Zero" | The Weekend Australian | Winner | |
| Dyani Lewis | "The World's Oldest Story Is Flaking Away. Can Scientists Protect It?" | Unspecified | Runner-up | ||
| Amanda Niehaus | "Dog People" | Unspecified | Runner-up |