Each year The British Academy makes a small number of awards to scholars in the social sciences and humanities whose work has been of special note. Today the Academy has announced the winners of the 2015 edition.

Dr. Brian A'Hearn (HHB Co-Investigator, Fellow and Tutor in Economics at the Pembroke College, University of Oxford) has been awarded with the Serena Medal for Italian Economics, for his reputation in, and contribution to the study of Italian economic history.

Dr. A’Hearn has made a number of contributions to understanding Italian economic development in the long run, especially in its regional aspects. These have ranged widely and include the location of the cotton textile industry, the health of Italian children as revealed by their adult statures, the role of cooperative banks in regional economies, and the ways in which Italy’s external trade affected its internal economic geography. Among his current projects are a studies of cognitive ability measured by the accuracy of self-reported ages, the politics of local primary school provision, and a comparison of poverty in Italy and in Edwardian Britain as estimated from household budgets.

The Serena Medal was endowed by Mr. Arthur Serena after Great Britain's alliance with Italy in the First World War, to be awarded annually ‘for eminent services towards the furtherance of the study of Italian history, literature, art or economics'.

Click here to see the full list of the 2015 award winners on The British Academy website.