BAPS annually sponsors an award for the best master thesis in the field of psychological sciences. The purpose of the award is to recognize master theses which use a scientific approach and make an original contribution to any field in psychology.
The selection procedure for the Best Master Thesis Award is currently underway. From 2024 on, the selection will be completely 'blind'. The names of the applicants, their thesis supervisors, and the involved universities will be hidden from the jury members, as well as other information that may reveal the identity of the applicants.
One implication of this procedure is that the names of the nominees can only be announced during the Awards Ceremony where the winner is also announced. Their names will therefore not appear on the BAPS website prior to the 2025 BAPS Annual Meeting.
BAPS annually sponsors an award for the best master thesis in the field of psychological sciences. The purpose of the award is to recognize master theses which use a scientific approach and make an original contribution to any field in psychology (clinical, social, cognitive, modelling, developmental, industrial, etc.). The winner of the Best Master Thesis Award receives €500.
Candidates must have completed a Master Thesis in the field of psychological sciences at a Belgian University. Master theses from any faculty/master’s program can be submitted as long as the master thesis contributes to the field of psychological sciences. Only master theses written in French, Dutch or English are eligible. The degree must be obtained in the academic year that precedes the award year (e.g., to enter this year’s competition, the thesis must have been completed during the 2023-2024 academic year). The thesis must have been awarded a grade of at least 16/20. Furthermore, candidates must be members of BAPS for the year 2024 (or have applied to become a member before the submission deadline).
Candidates must submit an electronic copy of their thesis as well as a summary of the thesis. The summary should be written in English and should not exceed 1,000 words. Candidates are allowed to include a maximum of 3 tables or figures, as well as up to 40 references (these are not included in the word count). The summary should clearly convey the theoretical basis of the work, the methods, the main results, and a discussion of the main findings.
Candidates should also include a statement regarding their specific contributions and the role of their promotor (and daily supervisor) in the development of the research idea, the writing-up of the theoretical introduction and the general discussion, as well as their contribution to the statistical analyses. This section should not exceed 200 words, and should be approved and signed by the promotor. All documents for the application need to be integrated as one single pdf-file (with the file name labelled as follows: NAME and SURNAME of the candidate_best master thesis 2025) and send to Lien.Goossens@UGent.be (the member of the BAPS EC in charge). The deadline for submitting the application is 15th of November 2024.
Upon reception of the application, we send a confirmation of receipt to the candidate.
One member of the EC checks the eligibility of the application. Then, the evaluation follows a two-step procedure which is fully blinded. As a first step, each application is evaluated on the basis of the summary of the thesis by four members of the BAPS executive committee that do not belong to the same university as the candidate. Each of these members selects and ranks the applications (a total of one third of the applications are ranked). Based on these rankings, the best 2 or 3 theses with the lowest mean rank order are shortlisted. As a second step, the full thesis of the shortlisted candidates will be evaluated by a jury composed of members of the National Committee for Psychology at RASAB (ROYAL ACADEMIES FOR SCIENCE AND THE ARTS OF BELGIUM). The BAPS president sends the folders of the shortlisted candidates to the President of the National Committee for Psychology at RASAB, which decide about the most appropriate jury depending of the topics of the shortlisted theses.
2023: Maarten Leemans (KULeuven)
2022: Elodie Kox (ULB)
2021: Sandra Invernizzi (UMons)
2020: Rakoen Maertens (Ghent University)
2019: Karla Matic (KULeuven)
2018: Pieter Verbeke (UGent)
2017: Delphine Puttaert (ULB)
2016: Jeroen Delplanque (UGent)
2015: Kim Archambeau (ULB)
2014: Charlotte Muscarella (VUB)
2013: Esther De Loof (UGent)
2012: Joline Rediers (KULeuven)
