Sandra Hamilton, a PhD candidate at Alliance Manchester Business School, has been awarded the 2023 Emerald Literati Award for the most outstanding paper published in Critical Perspectives on International Business.

Celebrating 30 years, the Outstanding Paper Awards are the backbone of the Emerald Literati Awards for excellence, with the winners chosen by the journal’s editorial team.

Sandra Hamilton’s paper, titled Public Procurement – Price-Taker or Market-Shaper?, examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. The paper was downloaded over 2,000 times during COP27 in Egypt and COP28 in Dubai.

Sandra, who has twice been invited by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to present her work in Geneva, said: “I’m especially delighted as a key selection criterium for the award is to recognise research that creates impact and generates real change beyond academia.

“Developments at COP28 were very relevant to my paper as, for the first time, COP hosted a trade day generating discussion regarding the role of public procurement in addressing global challenges and achieving sustainability objectives.

“My paper argues that the text of the WTO GPA (Government Procurement Agreement 2012) must be revised from ‘may consider environmental criteria’ to ‘must evaluate sustainability criteria, which would include social criteria’.”