Established in 2016 by philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture is a $1 million award given annually to an individual whose ideas have profoundly shaped human self-understanding and advancement in a rapidly changing world. The Berggruen Prize Laureate, selected by an independent jury composed of internationally recognized authors, philosophers, economists, and former Nobel Prize laureates, is chosen from a list of nominees spanning diverse fields of research and practice. During each annual nomination period, the Berggruen Institute invites submissions of candidates whose ideas have both intellectual depth and long-term social and practical value across nations and cultures.
Launching in 2023, the Berggruen Prize Essay Competition will serve as a complementary endeavor to the established Berggruen Prize. Whereas the Berggruen Prize honors an individual whose ideas have translated to widespread and significant impact, the Essay Competition seeks to provoke and recognize new, original thinking.
Patricia Hill Collins
Patricia Hill Collins, renowned sociologist and Distinguished University Professor Emerita, University of Maryland, has been selected as the 2023 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Laureate. The Prize Jury selected Collins because her work provides a powerful analytical lens through which we can envision the different and intersecting ways in which our material, social, and cultural worlds produce injustice and mutilate human possibilities. In addition, her work has given us “original vocabulary with which to think about social power and contestation.” The first Black laureate of the Berggruen Prize, Collins is a groundbreaking knowledge creator whose exploration of the interchange between theory and practice have transformed notions of power and justice, and have resonated heavily across politics, commerce, and mass culture.
Read morePrevious Laureates
Jury
Antonio Damasio is the Chair of the Jury, and Craig Calhoun serves as the Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Prize.