This is an annual award presented by The Round Table in memory of the journal’s late Editor, Harry Hodson, and to mark his association with The Round Table for nearly 70 years. It is awarded for a written piece of work by an undergraduate or postgraduate student from a university in the Commonwealth.

Harry Hodson

Henry Vincent (Harry) Hodson (1906-1999), an economist by training, joined the editorial board of The Round Table in 1930, and served as Assistant Editor from 1931 to 1934 and Editor from 1934 to 1939; he remained an active member of the board until his death, and contributed over sixty articles to the journal. Meanwhile he was in government service during the Second World War, including a year as Reforms Commissioner in India; he later wrote The Great Divide (1969), on the partition of India. He was Assistant Editor (1946-50) then Editor (1950-61) of The Sunday Times before becoming the first Provost of Ditchley and Director of the Ditchley Foundation (1961-71). He was later Editor of The Annual Register (1973-88).

2026 prize

A new round of awards will be announced shortly.

About the 2025 Hodson Prize winner

The Round Table is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2025 Hodson Prize is Beverley Saurombe, for her essay, ‘Digital Sovereignty in the Commonwealth: Evaluating South Africa’s Cybersecurity and Data Infrastructure’, which will be published in the journal in due course.

Beverley Saurombe is a postgraduate student doing her Master’s degree (MSc) in Computer Science at the University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park Campus. Her research interests focus on human-AI collaboration in cyber crisis management. She completed her Honours degree (BScHons) in Computer Science with Cybersecurity at the same university in 2025. As an undergraduate, she attended North West University, Mafikeng Campus, where she completed her Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Computer Science and Electronics. Her first publication was a paper she co-authored titled ‘Investigating the Use of AI in E-Business by the Shoprite Holdings Group’, which was published with Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series in January 2026.

Click here to learn about previous Hodson Prize winners.