A leading gender-critical researcher has been shortlisted for the 2025 Maddox Prize for her landmark review into how sex is recorded in publicly funded research.

Alice Sullivan, professor of sociology at UCL, is the only UK-based researcher named on the six-strong shortlist for the prize, awarded by Nature Awards and the science communication charity Sense about Science, which recognises researchers with a record of “standing up for sound science and evidence in the public interest, and for showing courage and integrity in the face of challenges and hostility”.

Published in March, Sullivan’s independent review revealed how inconsistent approaches in how sex is recorded in publicly funded research has led to a “widespread loss” of data over the past decade.

Numerous studies carried out after 2015 dropped questions related to biological sex and instead collected data on “gender”, the study explained, with the term referring to gender identity.

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Sullivan’s report recommended researchers should collect data on gender identity but avoid combining this category with questions on sex.

The 232-page study, published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, was commissioned in February 2024 by then-science secretary Michelle Donelan, who had used a Conservative Party conference speech to criticise the rise of “woke ideology” in science four months earlier.

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While Sullivan’s report won plaudits from many experts and politicians, including health secretary Wes Streeting, it was heavily criticised by others, including the transgender support group , which claimed the report is “biased, inadequate and potentially harmful to all”. 

, a charity that supports families with transgender children, claimed the UCL professor is an “adviser to an organisation widely considered to be an anti-trans campaign group” – namely, the gender-critical charity Sex Matters.

Speaking to Times Higher Education, Sullivan said it was a “huge honour to be shortlisted”.

“In an era of disinformation and distrust, the Maddox Prize is important because it gives recognition to scholars who put their heads above the parapet to defend science and evidence,” she said.

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Other researchers on the shortlist, , include US economist Edward Barbier for his environmental research, the American climate change researcher Virginia Burkett and British-Dutch data scientist Richard Gill, who is best known for his interventions in criminal cases involving allegations against health workers and parents.

Andrew Macintosh is also on the shortlist for providing the scientific evidence that exposed a misuse of a carbon credit scheme for planting trees in the Australian outback and Nicolás Zanetta for his research into communities living near copper mines in Chile.

Tracey Brown, director of Sense about Science and Maddox Prize judge, said researchers are increasingly seeing “attempts to suppress scientific findings now frequently targeting researchers’ employment rather than their data”.

“It’s not new – we’ve seen cases of corporations doing this in past years of the Maddox award – but it’s disturbing to see governments and civil society organisations doing it,” she said.

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The 2025 winner of the John Maddox Prize will be announced on 29 October at a ceremony in London.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com