RSTMH Student Essay Competition
RSTMH aims to support our members, Fellows, and wider networks from the very start of their careers. Our Student Essay Competition invites students to explore a wide range of challenging and interesting topics of global health and tropical medicine each year.
The 2026 Student Essay Competition opened for submissions on Thursday 5 March. The deadline for submissions is Friday 5 June, by 23:00 PM UTC.
Title for the RSTMH Student Essay Competition 2026
In recent months there have been cuts in funding for global health from national governments and other actors, significantly affecting research and health programmes.
'From your own perspective and experience, how will these recent funding cuts transform global health?'
Terms and Conditions
The essay should clearly set out your personal perspective and specific view, with evidence to back up your choice. The essay must demonstrate a combination of scholarship, original thought, and analysis.
Eligibility
The Competition is for students studying global health as a degree, or any degree with a component of global health or medicine. It is open to current, full-time students, based anywhere in the world. Evidence of student status must be provided at the point of submission.
Guidelines
Length: The essay should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words, excluding references, footnotes, and tables. A 150–200-word summary should also be submitted together with the essay. Please note that the essay will not be considered if the summary is omitted.
References: All sources must be appropriately acknowledged using references numbered in the order in which they appear in the main essay text. References should be indicated with brackets, e.g. (2) for reference 2. References do not count as part of the word count.
Format and presentation: The essay must be in English. Please try to organise the essay into a logical succession of headed sections, where possible. Only one essay per person can be submitted.
Originality: The essay should be entirely your own original work and should not have been previously published. Please see below for guidance on the use of AI in your essay. All essays will be checked for plagiarism, and we encourage you to refer to an academic writing handbook such as this one produced by LSHTM for guidance.
Use of AI: We encourage students to use AI tools responsibly as part of their essay-writing process. AI may be used to support tasks such as checking the clarity, flow, or grammar of your work; however, it must not be used to generate the full essay or substantial sections of it. Your submission should represent your own original thinking, research, and writing. All entrants must also include a brief declaration outlining how AI was used during the preparation of their essay.
Assessment: The winner(s) will be decided by the RSTMH Education and Training Committee. Highly commended essays may also be selected. The Committee values original work; if they believe AI has been used to generate the full essay, or substantial parts of it, then this may lead to your essay being disqualified. The decision of the Committee is final.
The panel will assess essays using the following criteria:
1. How well your personal perspective links to the national or international landscape;
2. How well structured the essay is;
3. How easy the essay is to understand;
4. The evidence basis for your essay, including how you make use of relevant references; and,
5. How much the essay inspires or engages the reader.
Prize: The prize for the winning essay is £200, plus a year's free student membership to RSTMH, either new or a renewal. We will also invite the winner to be presented with a certificate and their prize fund at an RSTMH event in 2026.
Announcements: We may publish, on our website or in our newsletter, anonymised data relating to submissions to the competition. We will announce the winner's name and essay title, plus that of any highly commended submissions on our website and through other communication channels. We may publish submitted essays on the RSTMH website and through our other communications channels. We may publish the winning essay in our scientific journal and on our website. By submitting an essay, you agree to these conditions.
2025 Student Essay Prize Winner
The essay topic for the 2025 Student Essay Prize was ‘How would you design equitable partnerships or collaborations to maximise health outcomes in your community?’.
Last years’ winning essay was written by Morlai Sesay, based at the Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, for his essay '‘Designing Equitable Partnerships for Transformative Health Outcomes in Port Loko District, Sierra Leone: A Grassroots Public Health Perspective, to address new approaches to partnership between local people and international health actors.' Find out more about the 2025 winner.
Previous Winners
2024 Will Matupi, University of Nottingham, ‘Programs for Pathology: Improving Health Outcomes for LMICs in the Artificial Intelligence Paradigm’
2023 Zoe Raw, University of Bristol, 'Pandemic Planet: The Terrifying Ascent of Zoonotic Diseases in an Overpopulated, Warming World during the Anthropocene’
2022 Hannah Lin, Cambridge University, "The Collateral of Conflict: The Effects of War on Health At Home and Away"
2021 K.M. Pavani Senarathne, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, "Burden of a "universal" healthcare system: The story of a common man from Sri Lanka"
2020 Mark Tan, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, "COVID-19 In An Inequitable World: The Last, The Lost, and The Least"
2019 Anouk de Cort, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, "The hidden clinical picture of climate change"
2018 Matthew Spencer, University College London
We are excited to announce the winner of our 2023 Student Essay Prize, now in its fifth year. The essay topic for this year was "What is the most important emerging challenge for global health over the next 5 years and how could this be overcome?" We wanted to hear a personal perspective on the theme.