A best paper prize award has been established by The Journal of Laryngology & Otology with effect from the January 2010 issue (i.e. volume 124 of the Journal). A prize will be awarded to the best paper in each of five categories: review article, main article, short communication, clinical record, and laboratory or basic research. All full papers from each year's volume of the Journal are now eligible for consideration, with the only exclusions being editorials, letters and book reviews.

A panel of four judges, selected from the present or past membership of the Journal's editorial board, has been tasked with independently judging each paper from the previous year and scoring it based on its importance, originality and quality. A prize will not be awarded in any category unless a mean of 70 per cent or more of the total available score is given by the adjudicating panel. The panel will also consider data, provided by the publishers, indicating the frequency with which individual papers are electronically accessed via the Cambridge University Press website (Cambridge Journals Online). The papers will then be ranked, and those with the highest aggregate scores will be reviewed by a prize committee consisting of representatives from the judging panel together with the emeritus editor. The authors of the potentially prize-winning papers will then be contacted, as it is a condition of each award that one of the authors is willing to present their work at the JLO annual prize paper meeting held at the Royal Society of Medicine in May.

The prizes consist of reasonable return travel costs to attend the meeting in London, overnight accommodation, attendance at a prize dinner on the evening of the meeting, and a cheque for £1000 for each winner in the review article, main article, and laboratory or research categories, or £500 for the best paper in the short communication and clinical record categories.