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Prizes and Awards

EUI Prizes

Various scholars and other people who feel close to the EUI have set up prizes to be conferred for the best doctoral thesis in a field of their choice. These prizes are dedicated to past EUI researchers or professors, or to other scholars or people to be honoured.

For each prize, the EUI departments concerned propose suitable theses to be taken into consideration from which a board of Faculty members then selects the winning thesis. Not every prize is awarded annually, but they are all conferred during the Degree Conferring Ceremony which is held annually in June.

The following prizes are currently awarded on a regular basis:

The Department of Law at the European University Institute has instituted this Prize in honour of the outstanding lawyer who was among the most distinguished figures in international law and international criminal justice.

The Prize is sponsored by the Department of Law of the European University Institute and is awarded annually for the best EUI doctoral thesis in International law.

Selection Schedule:

  • Period considered: the calendar year before the year of conferral (1 January to 31 December 2013, etc.)
  • Departmental thesis proposals to be submitted by mid-February
  • Decision by 1 April

Prize Winners:

This prize has been made possible through the generosity of James Kaye's family and friends, who have set up a fund to finance a prize for the best thesis in History and Visuality in memory of James, a former research student of the EUI who passed away in February 2011.

The prize will be awarded every two years for the best EUI thesis that combines the study of historical and visual sources.

Selection schedule

  • Period considered: the two calendar years before year of conferral (1 January to 31 December)
  • Departmental thesis proposals to the committee by the end of January
  • Decision by 1 April

Prize winners

The Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute has instituted this Prize in honour of two great postwar political sociologists, the late Stein Rokkan and the late Juan Linz.

The Prize is awarded annually for the best EUI thesis in a field of political sociology engaging with a theme in the broadly defined fields of work of Juan Linz and Stein Rokkan.

The Prize has been sponsored by Professor Richard Rose, holder of a Honoris Causa Degree from the European University Institute, and a founding father of postwar political science in Europe.

The first prize was conferred in 2011.

Selection Schedule

  • Period considered: the 24 months preceding 31 March of the year of conferral
  • Departmental thesis proposals to the committee by 1 April
  • Decision by mid-April


Prize winners

Mauro Cappelletti, whose name is honoured by this prize, was a great scholar of Comparative Law and Professor of Law at the EUI, at the University of Florence and at Stanford University in California. In 1995 Robert Helm, an alumnus of the EUI and a former student of the late Professor Cappelletti, together with his wife Mimie, generously decided to finance the annual award of a prize for the best doctoral thesis at the EUI in the field of comparative law.

The prize is awarded annually and was conferred for the first time in 2005.

Selection Schedule

  • Period considered: calendar year before year of conferral (1 January to 31 December)
  • Departmental thesis proposals to the Committee by the end of January
  • Decision by 1 April

Prize winners

This prize established by the EUI Department of Economics honors Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian sociologist, economist, political scientist and philosopher who lived and worked in Florence and Fiesole between 1882 and 1892 and is considered one of the pioneers of modern scientific research in economics.

The prize is to be awarded annually for the best doctoral thesis in economics defended at the EUI in the 12 months preceding the Conferring Ceremony.

Selection schedule

  • Period considered: the 12 months prior to the Conferring Ceremony
  • Decision by mid-April

Prize winners:

Doctor Honoris Causa of the EUI

The degree of Doctor Honoris Causa of the EUI is awarded annually to distinguished scholars who have considerably contributed during their academic career in the field of economics, law, political and social sciences, and history and civilization.

Nominations are approved by the Academic Council of the EUI. The honorary doctorate is awarded at the Degree Conferring Ceremony which takes place every year in June in Florence.

 

2026

  • Antony Anghie, Sri Lankan lawyer
  • Guido W. Imbens, Dutch-American economist

2025

  • Francesca Trivellato, Italian and American historian
  • Melinda Mills, Canadian and Dutch sociologist

2024

  • Gilat Levy, Israeli economist
  • Alexandra Prechal, Dutch lawyer

2023

  • Jens Hainmueller, German political scientist

2022

  • Maxine Berg, British Historian
  • Martti Koskenniemi, Finnish International Lawyer

2021

  • Karl Ulrich Mayer, German sociologist

(In 2020, no Honoris Causa degree was awarded.)

2019

  • Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law
  • Per Krusell, Swedish economist

2018

  • Kathleen Thelen, American political scientist
  • Jürgen Osterhammel, German historian

2017

  • Claudia Goldin, American economist
  • András Sajó, Hungarian lawyer

2016

  • Michelle Perrot, French historian
  • Iván Szelényi, Hungarian-American sociologist

2015

  • Jean Tirole, French economist
  • Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, German lawyer

2014

  • Saskia Sassen, American sociologist
  • Carlo Ginzburg, Italian historian

2012

  • Marek Safjan, Polish lawyer
  • Jacques Delors, French economist and politician

2010

  • Richard Rose, American political scientist
  • Jürgen Kocka, German historian
  • Sabino Cassese, Italian lawyer

2008

  • John H. Jackson, American lawyer
  • Thomas J. Sargent, American economist
  • Fritz W. Scharpf, German political scientist

2006

  • Gesine Schwan, German political scientist
  • Maria Todorova, Bulgarian historian

2004

  • Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, French historian
  • Ágnes Heller, Hungarian philosopher
  • Sir Anthony B. Atkinson, British economist

2002

  • Renate Mayntz, German sociologist
  • Jacques H. Drèze, Belgian economist
  • Albert O. Hirschmann, German-American economist

Former Prizes

This Prize was generously sponsored on a personal basis by the friends and colleagues at the European Court of Justice on behalf of the late Dr. Jacqueline Suter, who met her untimely death on 19 February 2009. Jackie worked for many years as a Head of Division at the ECJ. It is the wish of those who knew her in Luxembourg that her name should be commemorated here at the EUI, to which she always remained very fondly attached. She was one of the first British researchers to take her Ph.D. in the EUI Law Department on 25 March 1985 under the supervision of Prof. Klaus Hopt on the topic “The Regulation of Insider Dealing in Britain and France”.

The prize was awarded in 2009 and in 2012. The prize winners were:

  • 2009: Gracia Marin Duran, Law Department
  • 2012: Sacha M. M. Garben, Law Department

This Prize was made possible thanks to the generosity of the former EUI President Yves Mény who set it up in memoriam of his son, François.

The Prize was awarded one time in 2010 for the best EUI thesis analysing political institutions in a comparative way. It had a value of 2.000 Euro. The winner of the Prize was Christopher Hanretty of the SPS Department.

The EUI decided to award a special prize for the best thesis in EU integration, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaties.

Each department nominated a thesis defended by an EUI researcher between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2016.

The prize winner was Haakon A. Ikonomou, Department of History and Civilization. He received the Prize on 9 June 2017 at the EUI's annual conferring ceremony.

In 2004, the Alumni Association decided to fund a prize for the best interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis on a relevant European issue. The Alumni Prize was conferred every two years during the EUI Degree Conferring Ceremony.

The prize winner was selected by a Jury composed of four members representing the EUI disciplines and who were all Alumni and distinguished scholars in their fields. The Jury Chairman was chosen among former EUI Professors.

Each Department nominated the best thesis on a topic with interdisciplinary relevance in its field and the Jury selected a winner from among these nominations.

The prize consisted of €3,000, and a diploma and medal designed by the Florentine artist Onofrio Pepe, known for his exhibitions on 'Il mito di Europa' (The Myth of Europe). The other nominees were awarded a diploma for having won the contest within their respective Departments.

The prize was awarded in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. In 2012, no Alumni prize was awarded. The prize winners were:

  • 2004: Harm Schepel, Ph.D. 2003, Department of Law
  • 2006: Valérie Hayaert, Ph.D. 2005, Department of History and Civilization
  • 2008: Yannis Karagiannis, Ph.D. 2007, Department of Political and Social Sciences
  • 2010: Christopher John Hanretty, Ph.D. 2009, Department of Political and Social Sciences

The Department of Political and Social Sciences (SPS) instituted this Prize in honour of Josip Peić, a PhD researcher of the 2015 cohort who passed away in November 2015.

According to the EUI Executive Committee decision that approved the establishment of the Prize in January 2016, 750 Euro shall be allocated “to the best thesis in Political and Social Sciences to one of the researchers belonging to the cohort of Josip Peić”.

Now that all the SPS researchers of the 2015 cohort have defended their thesis, the Prize will be awarded during the 2023 EUI Conferring Ceremony.

A Committee formed by Professor Arnout van de Rijt, current Director of Graduate Studies of the SPS Department, Professor Fabrizio Bernardi, Director of Graduate Studies of the SPS Department in 2015, Professor Diego Gambetta, supervisor of Josip Peić, and Veerle Deckmyn, Director of the Academic Service in 2015, as an observer, decided to award the Josip Peić Prize to Krzysztof Krakowski for his thesis ‘Some Behavioral Legacies of Exposure to Gangs, Riots, and War’, defended on 15 December 2018 at the EUI.

Page last updated on 11/11/2026