Berggruen Prize
An annual $1 million award for major achievements in advancing ideas that shape the world.
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.
Latest Prize News
Patricia Hill Collins, Socióloga: “Los Intelectuales Hemos Retratado un Mundo Horrible y los Jóvenes Están Desangelados”
BBC Thinking Allowed: Patricia Hill Collins
TIME: The Winner of a $1 Million Philosophy Prize Sees a Silver Lining to Ideas Getting Attacked
$1 Million Berggruen Philosophy Prize Awarded to Patricia Hill Collins
Annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Awarded to Japanese Philosopher Kojin Karatani
Berggruen Prize Announces Antonio Damasio as Chair of Jury
Inaugurating Our First European Center of Activity
Annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Awarded to Dr. Paul Farmer for Advancements in Global Public Health Equity
Annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Awarded to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Her Work in Pioneering Gender Equality and Strengthening the Rule of Law
$1 Million Annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture Awarded to Public Philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum
Elif Shafak and David Chalmers to Join Berggruen Prize Jury
$1 Million Annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture Awarded to Citizen Philosopher Onora O’Neill
Charles Taylor Awarded Inaugural Berggruen Prize in New York City
Berggruen Institute Launches Philosophy and Culture Center, and announces the annual $1 million Berggruen Philosophy Prize
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.