LSE Health announces 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award winners
LSE Health has announced the winners of its 2026 Brian Abel-Smith and Walter Holland Lifetime Achievement Awards. Presented to four academics, the awards recognise those who have worked to shape health policy and public health across the world. The awards coincide with LSE Health's 30th anniversary and the 130th anniversary of LSE.
The Brian Abel-Smith Lifetime Achievement Award acknowledges exceptional contributions to health policy and social welfare, combining scholarly impact with tangible improvements to population health. This year's award goes to:
Professor Anthony Culyer, University of York, shifted the field of health economics from traditional welfarism toward extra-welfarism. He co-founded the Journal of Health Economics, wrote the influential 'Culyer Report' (1994) paving the way for NIHR, and served as founding Vice Chair of NICE. In Canada, he served as Ontario's first Chief Scientist at the Institute for Work and Health. His work shaped health priority-setting in the UK and internationally.
Professor Robert Evans, University of British Columbia, is a globally recognised health economist. A founding member of UBC's Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, his work shaped the understanding of health care financing and the broader determinants of population health. His books Strained Mercy and Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? are landmarks in the field.
The Walter Holland Lifetime Achievement Award honours those who have made outstanding contributions to public health research and demonstrated real-world impact on population health and health policy at global, regional or local levels. This year's award goes to:
Professor Lisa Berkman, Harvard University, is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Epidemiology. She is a pioneering social epidemiologist whose work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of how socioeconomic status, social networks and isolation affect health outcomes. Her landmark research on social ties and mortality helped establish social epidemiology as a field. She leads HAALSI, a major study on ageing and disease in South Africa, and her research on health inequalities and ageing has influenced policy internationally.
Professor Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), is one of the most influential public health scholars globally. He co-founded ECOHOST and has served as Research Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. His research has shaped understanding of health transitions in post-communist Europe, the role of alcohol in the mortality crisis in the former Soviet Union, tobacco control and the commercial determinants of health. His work on austerity and health has been particularly influential in policy debates across Europe.
Professor Elias Mossialos, Director of LSE Health, said: "Brian Abel-Smith and Walter Holland left an extraordinary mark on health policy, health economics, and public health. These awards exist to honour their legacy by recognising scholars whose work has had a significant impact on how we understand and improve health systems and population health.
"The response to our first call for nominations was remarkable. We were struck not only by the number of nominations but by the exceptional quality of candidates put forward from around the world. It made for a very difficult selection, and it confirmed that these fields continue to attract outstanding minds doing work of real consequence. We are proud to honour four truly distinguished scholars, and we look forward to building this tradition in the years ahead.”
Both awards are presented biennially by LSE Health, and are named in honour of two of the most influential figures in the history of health policy and public health research. Brian Abel-Smith was a pioneer of comparative social policy whose work shaped health systems across Europe and beyond. Walter Holland was a founding father of British public health research, whose evidence-based approach transformed how governments approach population health.