The annual ‘Elinor Ostrom’ Prize Award is awarded to the best paper presented at the previous year’s SISP Conference by scholars enrolled in a doctoral programme or who have obtained their Ph.D. no more than 7 years before the date of the Conference.

Elinor Ostrom.
Elinor Ostrom (Los Angeles, August 7, 1933 – Bloomington, June 12, 2012) was a US Political Scientist awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, along with Oliver Williamson, for the analysis of governance and, in particular, common resources. She was the first woman and first political scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize in this discipline.
Ostrom was a professor of Political Science and co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Political Analysis at Indiana University. Additionally, she founded and directed the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University. From 1996 to 1997 she was President of the American Political Science Association. Among her works: “Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action” (1990); “Development: Infrastructure Policies in Perspective” (1993); “Pool Resources” (1994); “Understanding Institutional Diversity” (2005).