The 2023 R.A. Butler Prize winners at the celebratory event in Cambridge, September 2023, flanked by two current POLIS students, Bao and Zalma. (Photo: Edward Murambwa)
The 2025 Questions are now available
What is the R.A. Butler Prize?
The R.A. Butler Prize is an essay competition on subjects related to politics and international studies for students in Year 12 or the Lower 6th.
The R.A. Butler Prize for essays in Politics and International Studies is a competition that can be entered by students in Year 12 or the Lower 6th. Candidates are invited to submit an essay on a topic to be chosen from a list of general questions announced in March each year, and to be submitted in August.
The objectives of the R.A. Butler Prize are twofold. Firstly, it aims to encourage students with an interest in modern politics and world affairs to think about undertaking university studies in politics, international studies or a related discipline. It is not limited to those already studying these subjects or indeed other social sciences. Secondly, its intention is to recognise the achievements both of high-calibre students and those who teach them.
The Prize is jointly organised by Trinity College Cambridge and Cambridge University’s Department of Politics and International Studies.
It was established in memory of the former Master of Trinity College, Lord Butler, who most famously served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who was responsible for the introduction of free secondary education for all students in the UK.
2025 Questions
Answer one of the following. You are encouraged to use a diverse selection of contemporary, historical or literary examples in making your arguments, and not to restrict yourself to material taken from school courses. Essays should be no longer than 3,000 words, including any footnotes.
- Is it possible for any well-informed person to be optimistic about the state of the world in 2025?
- Are international institutions and the concept of national sovereignty fundamentally at odds?
- If the citizens of a democracy are not well-informed, is that democracy imperilled?
- Does economic inequality inevitably lead to problems of political inequality?
- How should AI-generated political content be regulated to prevent manipulation in elections?
- Are there inevitably trade-offs between environmental protection and economic prosperity?
- Are there some government services that should never be outsourced to private corporations?
- Is the growing influence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) an effective counterweight to the global power of Trump’s America?
- Is it only a matter of time before the UK re-joins the European Union?
- Does humour have a role to play in politics?
Download a pdf of the 2025 questions.
Submission
The deadline for submission is 12 noon (BST) on Friday 1st August 2025.
Entries should be submitted via: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/essay-prizes/politics/
Useful information
Format
Essays should be 3000 words at most, including all footnotes and references but excluding the bibliography. It’s worth considering the use of examples in your essays: the best essays often use a diverse selection of contemporary, historical or literary examples.
We encourage you to provide references to your sources of information and to include a bibliography at the end of the essay. There is no recommended referencing or bibliographic style – use whatever format you think works best. Please include your name on the document and save the file as “Surname, First name”.
Eligibility
The Prize is for students in the penultimate year of their school when the questions are released in March. For students in England and Wales, that means you would be eligible if you are in Year 12 in March 2025; for Scotland, the eligible year is S5. Students from any country are most welcome to participate. The general rule is that to be eligible for the 2025 competition, you should be expecting to receive your final school results in the year from September 2025 to August 2026. This condition is held to strictly and, to be fair to the participants, no exceptions are made. Each entrant to the competition is allowed to submit only one essay.
Rules of eligibility are on: https://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/essay-prizes/politics/.
Deadline
The deadline for submission is 12 noon (BST) on Friday 1st August 2025.
Prize
The competition carries a First Prize of £600, to be split equally between the candidate and his or her school or college (the school or college’s portion of the prize to be issued in the form of book tokens), and a Second Prize of £400, which again is to be shared equally between the candidate and his or her school or college. We award on average 8 special commendations each year and 40 additional commendations. Winners and recipients of special commendations will be announced in September, and will be invited to visit the College to meet some of the teaching staff.
Contact
Any queries from students who may be interested in submitting work for the prize, or their teachers, should be emailed to Dr Glen Rangwala by email: butlerprize@trin.cam.ac.uk.
The 2024 R.A. Butler Prize winners are:
First prize: Quynh An Tran, British International School Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Second prize: Alia Saphier, Dwight-Englewood School, New Jersey, USA
Special commendations were awarded to: Ben Anderson (Bishops Diocesan College, Cape Town, South Africa), Ava Clarke-Stevens (James Allen Girls' School, London), Roye Ganju (United World College of South East Asia, Dover Campus, Singapore), Sam Hickman (Bristol Cathedral Choir School, Bristol), Alexander Mould (Prior Park College, Bath), Lily Newberry (Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School, Tunbridge Wells, Kent) and Evelyn Wong (King George V School, Hong Kong)
We would like to offer our congratulations to the winners and thank everyone who entered the 2024 R.A. Butler Prize competition. We had an unprecedented number of entries in 2024, making the decision incredibly difficult for our judges. We received some truly exceptional essays, so well done to all who entered.
Previous Prize winners
2023 winners:
First prize: John Paul Cheng, Winchester College, Winchester
Second prize: Fela Callahan, Harris Westminster Sixth Form, London
2022 winners:
First prize: Eunju Seo, North London Collegiate School Jeju, Republic of Korea
Second prize: Luke Grierson, High Storrs School, Sheffield
2021 winners:
First prize: Saumya Nair, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Gloucestershire
Second prize (joint): Liyana Eliza Glenn, home-schooled, UK
Second prize (joint): Amr Hamid, St Paul's School, London
2020 winners:
First prize: Lydia Allenby, Gosforth Academy, Newcastle upon Tyne
Second prize: Louis Danker, City of London School, London
2019 winners:
First Prize: Matthew Gursky, Hall Cross Academy, Doncaster
Second Prize: Evie Morgan, Ipswich School, Ipswich
2018 winners:
First Prize: Gergely Bérces, Milestone Institute, Budapest, Hungary
Second Prize: Tatyana Goodwin, Varndean College, Brighton & Eloise George, Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge
2017 winners:
First Prize: Folu Ogunyeye, Aylesbury High School
Second Prize: Eve McMullen, Minster School, Southwell
2016 winners:
First Prize: Silas Edwards, St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, Bristol
Second Prize: Eliza Harry, Greene's Tutorial College, Oxford
2015 winners:
First Prize: Stephen Horvath, Westminster School, London
Second Prize: Grace Elshafei, Sevenoaks School, Kent
2014 winners:
First Prize: Oscar Alexander-Jones, St Paul's School, London
Second Prize: Sam Maybee, King Edward VI Five Ways School, Birmingham
2013 winners:
First prize: Eleanor Shearer, Westminster School, London
Second prize (joint): Stephanie Clarke, Lancaster Girls' Grammar School, Lancaster
Second prize (joint): Will Barnes, Manchester Grammar School, Manchester
2012 winners:
First prize: Kiah Ashford-Stow, King Edward VI School, Southampton
Second prize: Jamie Sproul, Stamford School, Stamford, Lincolnshire
2011 winners:
First prize: Aman Rizvi, Winchester College, Winchester
Second prize: Frans Robyns, Kings College School, Wimbledon