The first TESLucy Cavendish Research Fellowship in Educational Policy is to go to Ruth Hawthorn, for a study into how two different age groups make career choices, and how far they are influenced by media stereotypes.

Announced last November, the fellowship at Lucy Cavendish, the Cambridge college for mature women students, is for one year. Applicants had to submit a research proposal with supporting essay on any aspect of educational policy-making, with links to the influence of the media particularly welcome.

After enquiries from several hundred readers and full applications from 65, a short-list of six applicants was interviewed at Lucy Cavendish College on projects ranging from science teaching to children’s play, student drop-outs to teacher training and politics, policy-making and the press.

Ruth Hawthorn will take up her fellowship in October and a report on her research will appear in due course in The TES and at a public lecture. Details of next year’s fellowship will be announced in The TES in the autumn.

The runners-up were: Anna Cleaves: Science for all - a career for whom? Sara Hallowell: Cause for concern: the case of the disappearing student; Marilyn Leask: Whose news? Whose views?; Anne Meredith: A profession of faith; Jacqui Stearn: Not merely child’s play.