Dr Sydney Calkin awarded Philip Leverhulme Prize for research into global reproductive health and emerging gene-editing technologies

Each year, the Leverhulme Trust awards just 30 Philip Leverhulme Prizes across the UK to exceptional researchers whose work has already achieved international recognition and whose future careers are judged to be particularly promising. The 2025 prizes span six subject areas – Archaeology, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Geography, and Languages and Literatures – with five recipients in each field.

Sydney will use the award to pursue new research exploring cross-border medical geographies of CRISPR, a gene-editing technology CRISPR enables highly precise changes to DNA, including the DNA of embryos. Its development raises urgent questions about how medical innovations move across borders and how states and global health systems respond to rapidly advancing biotechnologies.

“I’m honoured to receive this award from the Leverhulme Trust,” said Dr Calkin. “It’s an opportunity to extend my research on how technologies – from abortion pills to gene-editing – shape the politics of reproduction, and how people navigate health and rights across national borders.”

An interdisciplinary feminist social scientist, Dr Calkin’s work spans gender, political geography, and reproductive technology. Her research on self-managed abortion and the transnational circulation of medication abortion pills is detailed in her 2023 book Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders (University of California Press).

She is currently leading a major UK Research & Innovation Frontiers Grant, originally awarded as a European Research Council Starting Grant, on self-managed sexual and reproductive health. The five-year project brings together researchers in Queen Mary’s Departments of Geography and Chemistry to study how transnational communities source and test pharmaceutical products – including medical abortion pills, HIV prevention treatments, and hormone therapies – outside of formal health systems.

This latest Leverhulme Prize highlights the strength of research within Queen Mary’s School of Society and Environment, reflecting its vibrant interdisciplinary work across geography, politics, and history.