School of Social and Political Science

Content

Dr Lukas Lehner was highly commended in the international Wiley Research Heroes Prize, recognising the societal impact and benefit of his work.

Lukas was honoured in the Impact Beyond Academia category for his research on job guarantees, which aim to abolish long-term unemployment. This category is for researchers ‘whose work has made a tangible difference in policy, industry or society’.

The Wiley Research Heroes Prize runs each year to celebrate ‘the people who are making research more inclusive, innovative, and impactful’. There are five categories, and the prizes span all academic disciplines.

Lukas, a Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science, was one of three researchers to receive a highly commended runner-up award in the category.

This latest honour follows two prestigious awards in 2025 for his PhD dissertation – ‘Beyond Unemployment: An Investigation of Social Policies to Empower Workers in a Changing World of Work’:

• The Upjohn Institute 2025 Dissertation Award, for the best PhD dissertation on employment policies and issues. He was the first recipient at a UK institution, and only the second outside a US university.
• The 2025 Thomas A. Kochan & Stephen R. Sleigh Best Dissertation Award, which is awarded by the US Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), and regarded as the most prestigious dissertation award in industrial relations.

He said: “Long-term unemployment is a policy choice, not an individual failing. The evidence from the Marienthal pilot shows we can end it; and at a cost public budgets can afford. I'm delighted that this work is being recognised for its impact beyond academia.”

Lukas joined the University of Edinburgh in 2024 after completing his dissertation at the University of Oxford.

Learn more about Lukas and his work on his personal website.

Find Lukas's University of Edinburgh web profile here.

Learn more about the Wiley Research Heroes Prize.