In October 2012, I began doctoral research on the Saltire Society, a Scottish cultural charity, and their series of Literary Awards. I, admittedly, had never heard of the Society or its work before I applied to complete the research, but I had by that point acquired a particular interest in literary prize culture and was keen to delve into it more. My main concerns at the time were ‘how and why?’ How do literary prizes instil value and why do they matter so much? Who makes the decisions that make one book the winner and all others runnersup? At what point did they become key arbiters of cultural and literary prestige? These initial questions were influenced by my knowledge of literary prizes at the time, which centred largely on the so-called major literary prizes that most people recognise: the Booker Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Costa Book Awards. I went into my research assuming my findings would align with those of other scholars in the field. However, as soon as I started to observe and research the workings of the Saltire Society Literary Awards, I realised that not all prizes are created equal, and the kinds of questions I would be asking would need to change if I was going to fully understand the workings of the Society's Literary Awards.

Due to the nature of the project (an Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award), my research identity was split. On the one hand, I was a ‘typical’ researcher. I read the existing literature on literary prize culture, spent time in the National Library of Scotland digging through the Society's archives and interviewed key figures in the history of the Society and its awards. On the other hand, I was working closely with the Society in the actual administration and management of their Literary Awards.1 I arranged judging panel meetings, took minutes at those meetings, informed publishers of submission openings and deadlines, and arranged delivery of submitted titles to judges. The day-to-day workings of the awards informed my research and vice versa. This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, unusual in literary award research.