Nominations have opened for a new prize for investigative journalism in memory of Tony Bevins, the much-admired political journalist who died in 2001.

The Bevins Prize, to be awarded annually each November, features a bronze statue of a rat up a drainpipe - one of Bevins' favourite sayings which captured the essence of his approach to journalism.

It has been established by friends and associates who have set up the Bevins Trust with the purpose of encouraging and promoting genuine investigative reporting.

Throughout his career, Bevins was renowned for his determination to root out original stories, rather then rely on what is nowadays known as "churnalism".

Tony Bevins began his career on the Liverpool Echo and first arrived at Westminster as the paper's lobby correspondent in the late 1960s.

From there he moved onto the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Times, the Independent, the Observer and finally the Daily Express, where he was political editor when he died suddenly at the age of 58.

He became famous during the 1987 election campaign for asking the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at a live press conference whether she had ever used the NHS.

Nominations for the prize are invited from any source and any publishing format including online. It will be awarded at the annual Society of Editors' conference in November.

Entries will need to have been published between 1 June 2007 and 31 May 2008. E-mail bevinsprize@googlemail.com for more information or visit the awards website. Deadline for entries is August 11.

The Trust said the judges will be looking for work that required assiduous digging, and that successfully challenged those in power.

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