In 2015, the BSHS launched a new prize to recognise outstanding web projects and digital engagement in the history of science, technology and medicine (HSTM). The prize name was chosen by members from a shortlist to recognize the major contributions of Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) to numerous scientific fields, especially electrical engineering and mathematics, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Eligible entries will be discrete digital projects in their own right (they may be a digital-only strand of a larger project, or a standalone digital output) as opposed to supporting materials.

Eligible projects may include (but are not limited to):

• Publicly accessible websites
• Podcasts or videos
• Games, apps, or VR experiences
• Collections & Archives research & engagement projects relying on digital tools e.g. 3D imaging

The prize is awarded once every two years in odd-numbered years, to a project which has been created, or significantly updated, during the two years prior to the call for applications.

Previous Winners of the BSHS Ayrton Prize

• 2024: The HPS Podcast. Highly commended: Making & Knowing Project
• 2021: Typhoidland. Highly commended: Our Journey, Our Story: History and Memory of Sickle Cell Anaemia in Britain, 1950-2020
• 2019: Joint-Winners: Excavating AI; The Darwin Correspondence Project. Highly Commended: Genetics Unzipped; Wikimedian in Residence Project, University of Edinburgh
• 2017: REACH, IEEE
• 2015 (Inaugural): Voices of Science, British Library.