Applications open for the second edition of the Lewis Master Thesis Award
The European Whistleblowing Institute is delighted to announce the launch of the second edition of the Lewis Master Thesis Award. Awarded annually, this prestigious honor is designed to encourage and recognize students’ research in whistleblowing law and policy. This award highlights the recipient’s exceptional academic achievement and pays tribute to the groundbreaking contributions of Professor David Lewis, a distinguished scholar whose work has shaped the landscape of whistleblowing research.
Professor David Lewis is one of the leading legal scholars on whistleblowing research. He has been researching the subject of employment protection for whistleblowers since 1994 and has published internationally in law, business ethics, information technology, and human resource management journals. The Lewis Master Thesis Award is a testament to his role in advancing whistleblowing legal research and a testimony to whistleblowing law and policy research.
The Lewis Master Thesis Award is a unique opportunity for students to gain recognition for their research in the evolving field of whistleblowing law and policy. The winner and honorable mentions will be decided by the Evaluation Committee, composed of experts in the field of whistleblowing law and policy. The winner will receive a monetary award and will be invited to write a blog post for EWI’s website about the findings of their thesis.
Applications remain open until 31 January 2026, 23:59 CET.
Criteria
Only a master’s thesis can be submitted
The thesis must be in the field of whistleblowing law or policy
The thesis must have been graded in the academic year of 2023-2024 or 2024-2025*
The thesis can be in any language but the form must be completed in English
Every master’s student globally is eligible to apply
*Please note that each thesis can only be submitted once. If you submitted your thesis in the previous edition, your thesis will not be considered for this edition of the Lewis Master Thesis Award.
Evaluation Committee
Dr Taymi Milán Paradela | Marianna Leontiev | Dr Cristina Fernández González | Dr Stelios Andreadakis
-
Dr Taymi Milán Paradela is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Galway, whose work focuses on public policy, whistleblower protection, and organizational behavior. Her research examines how institutions design and manage reporting systems to protect those who disclose irregularities and acts of corruption, with particular attention to gender, intersectionality, and ethics in governance. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and master’s degrees in Policies and Practices for Development, International Relations, and Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute and the University of Havana.
Over the past fifteen years, she has combined academic research with teaching, institutional leadership, and consultancy for international organizations, contributing to projects on governance, social accountability, and human rights. At the University of Galway, her current research explores how digital platforms and legal frameworks influence fairness and protection in whistleblowing processes across Europe. Her recent publications, with Edward Elgar, Palgrave Macmillan, and other peer-reviewed outlets, address the intersections between corruption control, institutional integrity, and inclusive policymaking.
-
Marianna Leontiev is an EWI Fellow and an internal PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law at Trnava University, where her research focuses on the concept of public interest within the Slovak whistleblowing framework. She has played an active role in shaping whistleblower protection in Slovakia, having served as a member of the Government Office working group that drafted the 2019 Whistleblower Protection Act and formally established the Whistleblower Protection Office. She also served on the selection committee responsible for appointing the Office’s first director. Marianna is a country editor at Whistleblowing Monitor, where she reports on developments in whistleblowing legislation in Slovakia.
From 2015 to 2023, she worked as a lawyer and policymaker at the Stop Corruption Foundation, where she significantly contributed to anti-corruption policy and public legal education in the field of whistleblowing. In her legal practice, she specializes in labour law and whistleblower protection. In a recent publication, she addressed ongoing challenges related to the protection of police whistleblowers in Slovakia, the legal status and establishment of the Whistleblower Protection Office, and provided comparative analyses of whistleblowing frameworks across EU member states. Marianna also serves as a lay judge at the Supreme Administrative Court and is a member of the State Commission for Elections and Control of Political Party Financing.
-
Dr Cristina Fernández González is an EWI Fellow, a Lecturer in Criminology at the European University of Valencia, and a Criminologist and Researcher at the Center for the Research on Global Governance and a Member of the Research Network on Responses to Corruption Linked to Transnational Organized Crime of the Iberoamerican Institute of the Hague. She holds a PhD in Rule of Law and Global Governance from the University of Salamanca in which she conducted a criminological analysis of the decision-making process of whistleblowers in cases of public sector corruption.
Cristina worked for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the improvement of public policies to combat corruption in Spain. She also worked at the Observatori Ciutadà Contra la Corrupció, an entity dedicated to the analysis and combat of corruption in the Valencian Community, providing advice on public policies and being part of the Advisory Council of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency. Her contributions stand out in collective works developed in Brazil, Cuba and Argentina.
-
Dr Stelios Andreadakis is a Reader in Corporate and Financial Law at Brunel University of London. He is also the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Law, Economics and Finance. Prior to joining Brunel, he was a Lecturer and LLM Director at the University of Leicester and a Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. He holds a PhD and an LLM in International Commercial Law from the University of Leicester and an undergraduate Law degree from the Law School of the University of Athens, Greece.
Stelios’ research focuses on the role of whistleblowers as a corporate governance mechanism that promotes transparency and accountability. More specifically, he explores the impact of corporate culture in the strengthening of whistleblower protection worldwide, using the examples of the US, the UK and the EU. He has also been involved in comparative and socio-legal projects dealing with corporate regulation, sustainability and compliance, while he has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals in English, Spanish and Greek. Finally, Stelios has taught about whistleblower protection and corporate governance as visiting professor in numerous institutions around the world, such as India, Chile, Spain, Poland, Italy, Greece, Japan and Colombia.
