Social Policy Association


The Social Policy Association is a professional association, founded in 1972, for teachers, researchers, students and practitioners of social policy in the United Kingdom.
It publishes the Journal of Social Policy and Social Policy & Society.
Nick Timmins was president between 2008 and 2011.

Awards

Special Recognition Award

The Association gives out its Special Recognition Award 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." Beginning in 2016, the Association also makes an International SPA to recognise scholars outside the United Kingdom.
Before 2012, the SPA made Lifetime Achievement Awards to academics. The first of these was awarded in 2006 to Adrian Sinfield.