Francis Wilson Memorial Prize for Data-Driven Research

Francis Wilson (1939–2022), founding Director of SALDRU and DataFirst, was a passionate researcher and teacher whose work shed light on labour, poverty, and inequality in South Africa. A tireless advocate for open data, he believed research should speak directly to society’s challenges — a vision that inspired the creation of DataFirst. To honour his legacy, DataFirst awards two annual prizes of R10 000 each for outstanding research that makes innovative use of publicly available data. The ‘Dissertation Prize’ is awarded to the best submission of Masters- or PhD-level research, while the ‘Article Prize’ is awarded to the best submission of research published in peer-reviewed journals. A panel of three international adjudicators will consider submissions from all quantitative social sciences. Full submission guidelines and rules may be viewed on the DataFirst website.The submission deadline is 13 October 2025. For any questions, please contact datafirst@uct.ac.za.