Now in their fifth year, the INOMICS Awards remain unique in their celebration of institutions committed to the career development of economists worldwide. The awards recognise the universities, research centres, economics schools, banks, think tanks, and government and private institutions which listed their career and study opportunities on INOMICS in 2020, and were the most popular among our users.

Owing to both the quality of scholarships listed, and increasing interest in funding opportunities in the past year, we have added the ‘Top Scholarship Providers’ award to our usual categories, which otherwise consist of: Top Employers, Top Training Courses, Top Master’s Programs, Top PhD Programs, Top Conference Organizers, and Top Summer Schools.

In each category, we identify the Top 3 institutions as well as those in the Top 20. As always, our methodology reflects the interests and ambitions of INOMICS users. Winners were chosen by aggregating the total interest in offers publicised on INOMICS. as defined by how many users viewed the listings, and then went on to enquire further.

We also explicitly acknowledge the difficulties international educators and recruiters faced as a result of the pandemic in 2020. To that end, special recognition has been paid to the summer schools, professional course providers and conference organizers that, thanks to great innovation and leadership, were able to continue offering their services online.

To find out which institutions took home the gongs, download this year's Handbook here. In addition to the Awards, it also contains discussions on economic theory, the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home, and much, much more. It's a bumper issue – our biggest yet – and is not to be missed.