We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 ASDS Awards. Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone on the shortlists!
Thank you also to the many people who nominated individuals or organisations for these awards. We had a strong and varied field. The winners were announced at the Death, Dying and Disposal conference (DDD17) in Utrecht on 29 August 2025. Find out more about the conference here.
Read the award criteria and guidelines and procedures.
ASDS Lifetime Achievement Award
WINNER: Professor Douglas Davies FBA, of Durham University.
The ASDS Lifetime Achievement Award is prestigious, awarded to a current ASDS member for outstanding contributions to Death Studies over the course of an academic, professional, voluntary, and/or artistic career.
Douglas Davies is a name known to all who work in the interdisciplinary field of Death Studies. From early career scholars, fresh in the field, through to senior colleagues who have themselves deeply influenced the field, the stories that people tell of their experiences of Douglas are always warm and encouraging, yet unique to the individual: the time and care Douglas gives to all who encounter him is a true testament of his character.
Significantly, 2025 marks 50 years of Douglas’s career in academia: how fitting that the association he was formative in establishing would award him with the honour of Lifetime Achievement Award this year.
Read an interview with Professor Davies in Mortality.
ASDS Book Award
WINNER: Ashes to Admin (by Evie King) explores the unseen world of council funeral officers, shedding light on the quiet dignity of farewells when no family is there to mourn.
The panel said: “This highly accessible book offers a fresh perspective on socio-political processes that shape practices related to the management of death in an overlooked socio-legal context. Compassionate, informative, witty and honest, it is a beautifully written account of the emotionality and vulnerability of death work as it pertains to the organisation of section 46 funerals under the UK Public Health Act.”
SHORTISTED TITLE: The Final Farewell (by Minakshi Dewan) is a deeply insightful journey through the diverse rituals, beliefs, and emotions that shape the farewell of the departed across major faiths in India.
SHORTLISTED TITLE: Necropolitics of the Ordinary: Death and Grieving in Contemporary Singapore (by Ruth Toulson) unearths the hidden politics of cemeteries in Singapore, revealing how forced exhumation reshapes grief, ancestor worship, and state control over the dead.
ASDS Public Engagement Award
WINNER: The Victoria and Stuart project – end of life care planning with people with learning disabilities.
The panel said: “The public engagement award for 2025 is presented to The Victoria & Stuart Project for the often neglected area of end of life care planning with people with learning disabilities. This remarkable project involved over 200 people, including 36 people with intellectual disabilities, four of whom were salaried researchers.
“The project reaches an under-served community and also provides numerable accessible resources available to the public online, an online End of Life care planning toolkit, as well as online events. Congratulations to the team!”
SHORTLISTED PROJECT: Dead Good – creative death workers and arts-based death educators.
SHORTLISTED PROJECT: The Death Studies podcast – a platform for the diversity of voices in, around and contributing to the academic field of Death Studies.
ASDS Mortality Article Award
WINNERS: Katharina Mayr, Nikias Barth, Andreas Walker and Sophie Gigou for their article: ‘Organized rituals – ritualized reflection. On mourning culture in palliative care units and hospices.