The Queen’s Reading Room Medal

The Queen’s Reading Room Medal celebrates individuals in their communities who are champions of books and literature, and who help others to make room for reading and storytelling in their lives. 
Our Medalist will have made a demonstrable impact on the people they serve: improving literacy, transforming non-readers into readers, or helping to improve wellbeing by connecting people with other book lovers, and connecting people through stories. Their impact may be connected to literacy but the key impact is around increasing reading, and/or harnessing the power of reading and stories to improve lives, and motivating others to do the same. Volunteering and the power of voluntary work is celebrated by this award. Candidates may have formalised their work around reading into a charitable organisation or programme, but will it have begun as voluntary work.
Nominations may be made by the person themselves or by others and submitted to us online via our web form. Nominations will be open between 1st June 2026-1st October 2026.
The medal nominee must: 
  • Be aged 18 or over 
  • Have conducted their reading activity in the UK 
  • Have conducted some of their activity in the period March 2025-October 2026, and/or, if they are being nominated for activity prior to these years, be able to demonstrate lasting impact to the present day

Why a medal?

By spotlighting and celebrating these individuals, we seek to champion those ordinary people who make an extraordinary impact where they live or work. We also hope that by spotlighting our shortlisted candidates and their work, we are able in future to pool expertise and resources, to learn from these advocates for reading who are working on the ground and in their communities, and to empower and inspire others to take up the call for reading in turn.

Judging the Medal

The QRR team will internally create a longlist of medal nominees. This longlist will not be publicised and is for internal reference during our due diligence and verification process. Following this, we will whittle down to a shortlist of candidates for our expert judging panel to review and select the winner(s) from.
For 2026, The Queen’s Reading Room medal judging panel consisted of major figures in the UK’s literary, literacy, library scenes:
  • Baroness Gail Rebuck, Chair of Penguin Random House UK
  • Jonathan Douglas, CEO of the National Literacy Trust
  • Alison Tweed, CEO of Book Aid International
  • Dan Conway, CEO of The Publishers Association
  • Sarah Mears, Programmes Director for Libraries Connected
  • Nels Abbey, Founder of The Black British Writers Guild
  • Ann Cleeves, Author and Founder of Reading for Wellbeing
Judges will be assessing a shortlisted candidates on the following criteria (though we do not expect nominees to meet all of the criteria presented):

1. Proving Commitment

– Has the candidate gone above and beyond by committing to championing reading and stories? Is the activity voluntary, and if not, how has the candidate demonstrated commitment beyond their occupational role/remit?
– Is there evidence of either longevity of commitment? i.e., involvement in championing reading across a significant period of time, or significant depth of commitment over a set period of time i.e., running a responsive project/call to action

2. Demonstrating Initiative

– Has the nominee demonstrated initiative by a) identifying a need, i.e., lack of access to books for a group or community, need for representation for a group or community, lack of engagement with books and stories in a group or community; and b) designing and/or providing a solution to that need; and c) creating means for that solution to be scaled and/or sustained

3. Widening Reach and Access

– Has the nominee improved access to reading, books and stories?
– Have they championed diversity and helped make reading more inclusive?
– Have they considered how to break down barriers to reading?
– Have they inspired in others a love of reading, particularly in groups who may not have been readers/had access to reading before?

4. Delivering Impact

– Has the nominee harnessed the transformative power of stories to make a real change in people’s lives?
– Have they created scale or sustained impact through empowering others to make room for reading?
– Has the nominee’s activity either reached a wide pool of people, or had a deep/lasting impact on a smaller group of beneficiaries?

The Queen’s Reading Room Medal

Nominations open
1st June

The Queen’s Reading Room Medal celebrates individuals in their communities who are champions of books and literature, and who help others to make room for reading and storytelling in their lives. 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Who can be nominated?
    Any individual over the age of 18, whose work has been based in the UK.
  • Who can put forward a nominee?
    Any individual over the age of 18.
  • Can I nominate myself?
    Yes, but we may ask you to provide a referee at a later date who can corroborate your activity.
  • How do I submit a nomination?
    You can submit a nomination online on our web form. We suggest drafting your application on a word processor (Microsoft Word, Google Docs etc) and copy and pasting your answers across so that you don’t lose any progress. Ready to submit? Use the web form linked below (open Monday 1st June 2026).
    If you’re experiencing any issues with the web form submission, please contact our team using the subject header ‘2027 Medal Submission’ at this email address: info@thequeensreadingroom.co.uk
  • What information will I need to include in a nomination?
    You will need to supply:
    • Your own name, email address and phone number (the nominator)
    • The nominee’s details: name, email address and phone number (if you have them) 
    • The person you are nominating’s organisation (if related to their activity) 
    • Answers to our questions on why you are nominating this person for The Queen’s Reading Room Medal
  • How we use this information
    We use the information provided to administer and assess nominations and to contact nominators and (where relevant) nominees about the nomination. As part of the assessment process we may carry out proportionate checks to verify information provided, including reviewing publicly available sources and requesting clarification from the nominator and / or nominee where needed. We will not use nomination data for marketing. We will keep nomination data for up to three years to administer the award across multiple cycles, maintain an accurate record of previous nominations, and handle any follow-up queries, after which it will be deleted or anonymised. For more detail please see our Privacy Policy
  • What are you looking for in a nominee?
    We are looking forward to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to increasing reading and/or storytelling. This may be in their local community, or with a wider target group of beneficiaries. Their impact could have reached a large number of people across the UK, or have had a deep impact on a smaller number of people. Their work will have been voluntary in some capacity: it might be that voluntary work has since become a paid role or a paying organisation/charity, but this individual’s activity will either have started as voluntary or gone beyond the expectations of a paid role.
  • When should this have happened?
    This person’s activity may have occurred over some years, but we would like to see that some of the activity took place between March 2025-October 2026 (in the 18 months prior to our application window closing), or that the positive impact of this person’s activity is still ongoing.
  • When should I submit this nomination?
    Nominations via our web form will be open from Monday 1st June 2026. They will close at 11.59pm on Thursday 1st October 2026. All submissions will be assessed after this date: it does not make a difference to your application if you submit earlier or later in the period.
  • How is the award judged?
    After nominations close on the 1st October 2026, The Queen’s Reading Room team will internally create a shortlist of candidates for the Medal. We will be shortlisting between 5-10 candidates according to: 
    1. How they have met our criteria: proving commitment; demonstrating initiative; widening reach and access; delivering impact; and, 
    2. Whether we have been able to satisfactorily fact check and verify information presented in your nomination 
    Following our shortlisting process, a judging panel of industry experts will meet to select the winner/winners. They will use the same judging criteria to assess candidates, and then place votes for the winning candidate.
  • What does the Queen’s Reading Room Medal Winner get?
    The winner/s will receive a beautiful bespoke medal crafted by Worcestershire Medals Ltd. The winner/s and shortlisted candidates will be invited to a reception to celebrate their achievements. Following the reception, winner/s and shortlisted candidates will be featured on our website.

With Thanks To

Worcestershire Medals Limited

We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Worcestershire Medals Limited who have graciously supported The Queen’s Reading Room Medal. As Royal Warrant holders since 2008, Worcestershire Medals are suppliers of insignia to many Governments around the world