King's College London

Dr Emmert Roberts has been awarded the 2026 Fred Yates Prize for Early Career Researchers. The prestigious annual award recognises researchers in the earlier stages of their career who have made a significant and specific contribution to the addictions field in recent years.

The prize, awarded by the Society for the Study of Addiction, recognised the way Dr Roberts’ record of collaborations and involvement in national guideline development have shown a clear pathway from research to policy impact. His public engagement activities, such as podcast appearances, were also noted to have demonstrated commitment to wider societal benefit. The panel praised Dr Roberts’ trajectory as an early career researcher, saying that “his career to date has been marked by significant methodological innovation and meaningful contributions to addiction research.”

Dr Roberts is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Addiction Psychiatry in the Department of Addictions at the IoPPN. He also works as a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist at the South London and the Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust. He is an NIHR Advanced Fellow and a Commonwealth Fund Senior Harkness Fellow and holds fellowship at the Royal College of Physicians and membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. 

He has a strong interest in substance use, sexual and reproductive health and the overlap of physical and mental health conditions. His NIHR Advanced fellowship focuses on developing methods to harness the potential of nationally collected administrative data to reduce harm due to drug and alcohol use. During the COVID-19 outbreak he founded the Homeless Hotel Drug and Alcohol Service (HDAS) the first pan-London service to provide drug, alcohol and tobacco support to the population of people experiencing rough sleeping who were temporarily housed in emergency accommodation across the capital.

The Fred Yates Prize for Early Career Researchers is awarded to people at the early stages of their research careers who have already made significant and specific contributions to the field of addiction. The prize was created in honour of SSA colleague Fred Yates, who passed away in 1996, but whose work “made a lasting impression on the field and an important contribution to the welfare of those with alcohol and drug problems”.

Dr Roberts will receive his award at the SSA Annual Conference in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 and 13 November 2026