The Publishers Association announces that Professor Jim Al-Khalili will deliver the Unwin Award Lecture 2025

The Publishers Association has announced that quantum physicist, academic, author, broadcaster and one of the UK’s best known science communicators, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, will deliver the Unwin Award Lecture 2025 at The Royal Institution on Tuesday 1 April 2025.

Focusing on the value that publishing brings to society, Professor Jim Al-Khalili will talk about his career balancing a university role as an academic scientist as well as a public scientist, broadcaster and author. In particular, Professor Al-Khalili will reflect upon the undiminished thirst for popular science books that has continued unabated ever since Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and his part in it.

The Lecture runs in tandem with the Unwin Award: a new, literary award recognising non-fiction writers in the earlier stages of their careers as authors, whose work is considered to have made a significant contribution to the world. Worth £10,000, the Unwin Award – which is administered by The Publishers Association and has made possible following a donation from the Unwin Charitable Trust – is intended to champion and showcase the value of the UK publishing industry to the world.

The winner will be revealed following the conclusion of Professor Al-Khalili’s lecture on 1 April. The six shortlisted writers are: Catherine Belton, Caroline Criado Perez, Helen Czerski, Afua Hirsch, Guy Shrubsole and Chris van Tulleken.

The judging panel for the 2025 Award is chaired by Professor Shahidha Bari – an academic, critic and broadcaster – who is joined by John Cotterill, who is Non-Fiction Buyer at Waterstones, and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, social entrepreneur, author, podcaster and speaker.