Bill Law Student Award 2025 Ceremony: An Outstanding Year for Careers Research
A record-breaking year for the Bill Law Award culminated on July 1st with Valerie Rowles taking the top prize
NICEC proudly announced the winner and highly commended recipients of the prestigious Bill Law Student Award 2025 during a online ceremony held via Zoom on July 1st. It was especially pleasing that this year’s awards saw an unprecedented number of entries and entries of such a high standard of research.
The virtual event, attended by NICEC members, students, and professionals from across the field, was further enriched by a keynote address from recently retired NICEC Fellow, David Andrews.
"We were absolutely blown away by the quality, variety, and the profound relevance and value of all the research submitted this year," stated NICEC Chair Gill Frigerio during the ceremony.
After extensive deliberation, the judging panel faced the difficult task of narrowing down the exceptional submissions. This year, the judges opted to award four Highly Commended prizes, a testament to the outstanding calibre and diverse nature of the research.
The Highly Commended recipients for the Bill Law Student Award 2025 are:
Each of these individuals presented fascinating research that stood out to at least one of the judges, highlighting the breadth of innovative thinking in the field.
The eagerly anticipated announcement of the winner revealed Valerie Rowles as the recipient of the Bill Law Student Award 2025. Valerie's entry 'Mind the language: examining what grammar can tell us about the embedding of individual responsibility for career in social discourse' captivated the judges, who praised it as "the most interesting and innovative piece of writing around careers they had read in a long time."
The judges particularly lauded Valerie's work for its deep exploration into the role of language in constructing unconscious attitudes towards careers. They highlighted its clear contribution to both discourse and practice, commending the interdisciplinary nature of the research and the impressive scale of its data set. "It was a conceptually bold, methodologically innovative, well-rounded, stand-out piece of work," remarked the judging panel.
As the winner, Valerie Rowles will receive a £50 Amazon voucher and will be fully supported by NICEC to prepare her award-winning entry for publication in the next edition of the NICEC journal.
All at NICEC extend our warmest congratulations to Valerie and all the highly commended entrants. The Bill Law Award will return in 2026!
