Who receives the award?

The award was established in memory of Professor Roger Needham (1935-2003). Sponsored by Microsoft Research, it is made annually for a distinguished research contribution in computer science by a UK based researcher who has completed up to 10 years' of post-doctoral research.

The winner of the award will receive a £5,000 prize and the opportunity to present their work at the annual Roger Needham Lecture, the following year.

Find out about this year's lecture

Read about the review of BCS Awards

How do I nominate for the Needham Award?

Nominations for the Needham Award are currently closed. Watch out for announcements about next year’s Award.

Eligible candidates

Your nominee will need to have completed up to ten years of post-doctoral research. They should also have been a UK resident for the three years prior to their nomination or deemed to have had a substantial connection with the UK during this time.

Rules of submission

Please make your nomination in the form of a single Word or PDF file, with the nominee’s name in the file title, and security levels set so that we can copy, print and extract from the document.

Entries need to include the following information:

  • full name and contact details for both nominator and nominee
  • a description of the distinguished research contribution (up to 500 words), provided by the nominator
  • a description of the importance of the research to computer science (up to 200 words), provided by the nominee - in a form accessible to a general computer science audience
  • the name and email of three referees who can provide an independent assessment of the research contribution
  • the nominee’s CV - up to four pages
Awards committee

The Awards Committee has responsibility to seek the nominations of individuals - or submissions of work - on an annual, scheduled basis, for such awards.

The committee manages the review and selection processes and all the activities associated with the assignment of the awards to the selected recipients. The current members of the Awards Committee are:

  • Prof Anthony G Cohn FREng CEng CITP, University of Leeds, Chair of the Awards Committee
  • Prof James Davenport FBCS, University of Bath, Computer Algebra
  • Prof Alastair Irons CITP FBCS, BCS Vice-President, Academy & Chair of the BCS Academy of Computing Board, Deputy Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Abertay University
  • Julia Adamson CITP MBCS FRSA, Managing Director, BCS Education and Public Benefit
  • Prof Dame Muffy Calder DBE OBE FRSE FREng FBCS, Vice Principal & Head of College of Science & Engineering, University of Glasgow
  • Prof Alastair Donaldson, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Computing, Imperial College London
  • Prof Katie Atkinson, Chair and Dean of the School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Liverpool
  • Neil White, Altran
  • Prof Carron Shankland SFHEA MBCS, Professor of Computing Science, University of Stirling

Submit your nomination

Please send us your nomination, or any questions you may have, by email to awardscommittee@bcs.uk

About Roger Needham

Roger Needham pioneered the technique of protecting passwords using a one-way hash function. Among his theoretical contributions is the development of the Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic. The Needham-Schroeder security protocol forms the basis of the Kerberos authentication and key-exchange system, and he also co-designed the TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms.

Professor Needham joined Cambridge's Computer Laboratory (then called the Mathematical Laboratory) in 1962, becoming its head in 1980. He was made a professor in 1981 and remained with the laboratory until his retirement in 1995.

Sponsored by Microsoft Research.