Premio Gaetano Cozzi per saggi di storia del gioco

Premio Gaetano Cozzi for essays on the history of games

You get 1,500 EUR (gross) for an original, unpublished academic essay on the history of games, leisure, festivity, sport and play, from antiquity up to the start of the Second World War. Each edition awards two prizes of 1,500 EUR. The prize comes from the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche (FBSR) in Treviso, Italy. Winning essays appear in the journal Ludica. Annali di storia e civiltà del gioco, and strong essays that miss out on a prize may be published there too.

Who can apply

• Age: You are a young researcher. For the 2027 edition you must be born in 1991 or later. The cut-off moves forward by one year each edition.
• Nationality: Any nationality can apply.
• Your essay: It must be original and never published before. Final theses and dissertations do not count.
• Length: Maximum 50,000 characters including spaces (about 8,000 words), counting footnotes and appendix. You may add up to 10 good-quality images with captions.
• Language: You write in Italian, English, French, Spanish or German.
• Degree or institution: No specific degree, university or country is required.

How to apply

You send everything in one email to FBSR: your essay in Word and PDF, an abstract of up to 3,000 characters, a short CV in the European format, and a statement that the text is unpublished. The deadline for the 2027 edition is 15 March 2027. A jury from the journal's scientific board reviews the essays. Winners hear back by 15 June 2027, and the prize is handed over at a public FBSR event in November.

How realistic are your chances?

This is a narrow, specialist award. Your essay must fit one clearly defined field, the history of games and play, and you must be within the age limit. That keeps the pool of entrants small compared with open scholarships. Because the prize is judged purely on the quality and originality of a single essay, a well-researched piece in the right subject has a real shot at one of the two prizes.