2026 Prizes

The Ronnie MacKeith Prize 

The Ronnie MacKeith Prize is awarded to those who have made a significant contribution to paediatric neurology as judged by published work and who are under the age of 40 years or within 5 years of obtaining CCST at the time of the application closing date. The prize lecturer gives a 30-minute presentation at the BPNA conference and is awarded £1000 plus full registration for the conference plus travel expenses and hotel accommodation. Click here to see the list of previous Ronnie MacKeith Prize Lecturers.

The BPNA 2025 Ronnie MacKeith Prize was awarded to Dr Elizabeth Radford (University of Cambridge) for presentation entitled ‘Turning the tide of variants of uncertain significance: a role for saturation mutagenesis?’


Best Oral Presentation by a Trainee Prize 

This will be awarded to the trainee presenting the best oral presentation at the BPNA 2026 conference. When submitting your abstract please remember to record you are a trainee (FY1-ST8, fellows) when entering authors and affiliations. The prize will be full registration to the BPNA 2027 conference. 

The BPNA 2025 Best Oral Presentation Prize was awarded to Dr Jonathon Holland (University of Cambridge)
for presentation entitled ‘Evaluating visual assessments for the design of clinical remyelination trials in multiple sclerosis in children'.


Best Oral Poster Presentation by a Trainee Prize 

This will be awarded to the trainee presenting the best oral poster at the BPNA 2026 conference. When you submit your abstract, please remember to record you are a trainee (FY1-ST8, fellows) when entering authors and affiliations. The prize will be full registration to the BPNA 2027 conference. 

The BPNA 2025 Best Oral Poster Prize was awarded to Dr Gayathri Varma Narendran (University Hospitals of North Midlands) for presentation entitled ‘Current practices on management of children with spike-and-wave activation in sleep'.


Best Online Poster Presentation by a Trainee Prize 

This will be awarded to the trainee presenting the best online poster at the BPNA 2026 conference. When you submit your abstract, please remember to record you are a trainee (FY1-ST8, fellows) when entering authors and affiliations. The prize will be full registration to the BPNA 2027 conference. 

The BPNA 2025 Best Online Poster Prize was awarded to Dr Thomas Leyland (Royal Belfast Hospital For Sick Children)
for presentation entitled ‘A review of paediatric patients with confirmed SCN1A mutation in Northern Ireland'


NEW! Best Poster Presentation by an Allied Health Professional

This prize will be awarded to the allied health professional with the best presentation, either poster or oral. When submitting your abstract, please ensure you indicate that you are an allied health professional (e.g., specialist nurse, psychologist, neurophysiologist, physiotherapist, speech therapist, etc.) when entering authors and affiliations. The prize, sponsored by the BPNA, is full registration for the BPNA 2027 conference.  


Best Poster Presentation by a Medical Student 

This will be awarded to the medical student with the best presentation, either poster or oral. When submitting your abstract please remember to record you are a medical student (undergraduate) when entering authors and affiliations. The prize sponsored by the BPNA, will be full registration to the BPNA 2027 conference. 

The BPNA 2025 'Best Medical Student Presentation' prize was awarded to Ms Nandika Ramamurthy (Newcastle University) for presentation entitled ‘Deep Learning-Based Classification of Hyperkinetic Movement Disorders in Children'.


Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology (DMCN) Best Article by a BPNA early career Member Prize 
BPNA trainee members or early career consultants are invited to nominate any of their papers at any point during the preceding calendar year of the BPNA 2026 conference, taking place on 28-30 January 2026.

Best original article, case series, review paper, or clinical practice guide published by a BPNA trainee or early career consultant in the DMCN volume published during the year prior to the BPNA annual conference. One author at least on the paper must be a BPNA trainee or early career consultant at the time of submission, and this can include a member of an author group. 

  • The BPNA author should be within two (2) years of achieving their Certificate of Completion of Training (or equivalent).
  • The BPNA author should have made a demonstrable contribution of the paper. 
  • The BPNA author may be based in any country. 

Key Criteria:

  • Impact on the lives of patients, caregivers and their families.
  • Methodological robustness.
  • Novelty. 

Any BPNA trainee member or early career consultant may nominate any of their papers at any point during the preceding calendar year of the conference, by emailing admin@mackeith.co.uk with details of your nomination, including a copy of your CV and a brief explanation of how your paper fulfils the criteria. Papers may be nominated at any time and will be considered for the prize relating to the volume in which the paper is ultimately published. £1000 will be awarded by MacKeith Press to the BPNA prize winner. 

The deadline date for submission is 15 November 2025.

The BPNA 2025 ‘Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology (DMCN) Best Article by a BPNA Trainee’ prize was awarded to Dr Alison Gifford (University Of Exeter) for their presentation entitled ‘Reducing epilepsy diagnostic and treatment gaps: Standardized paediatric epilepsy training courses for health care professionals’