The Holberg Prize and the Nils Klim Prize Conferred

Nils Klim-prisvinner Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen og Holbergprisvinner Joan Martinez-Alier. (Foto: Eivind Senneset.)
Bilder fra den offisielle prisutdelingsseremonien for Holbergprisen og Nils Klim-prisen. Foto: Eivind Senneset, UiB

Today, the Holberg Prize was conferred upon Professor Emeritus Joan Martinez-Alier, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, by HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.

At an award ceremony today in the University Aula in Bergen, Professor Emeritus Joan Martinez-Alier received the Holberg Prize from HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. 

The Holberg Prize is worth NOK 6 million (approx. EUR 505,000) and is awarded annually for outstanding contributions to research in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology. 

‘This generous award from the Holberg Committee and Board places ecological economics and political ecology, and the debates on degrowth, in the academic spotlight and nearer to the center of politics’, said Martinez-Alier. ‘Our main purpose is indeed to make visible the many environmental conflicts that exist around the world, arising from the growth and changes in the social metabolism.’

Martinez-Alier receives the Prize for his outstanding research in these areas over five decades. He is known for criticizing established economic theory and traditional approaches to economic growth, and he is also a major figure and leading public intellectual in the burgeoning movement for degrowth.

A Question of Power

In his acceptance speech, Martinez-Alier described how the actual clash between economy and environment has been hidden by a ‘contrived consensus’ on sustainable development. ‘Even worse,’ he said, ‘international democratic limitations on the abuse of the environment are made impossible by increasing inequality and unleashed state power. Effective agreements to prevent environmental damages and achieve respect for human rights are less likely than ever.’

Martinez-Alier also explained how ecological economists use multi-criteria evaluation, as plural values such as ecological values, livelihood values, economic values, sacredness, and indigenous territorial rights cannot be expressed in a single unit of account. ‘Who has the power to simplify complexity and hide injustice and uncertainty?’ he asked. ‘Political science studies power. That is why political ecology studying such conflicts is political ecology.’

The Nils Klim Prize conferred upon Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen

Also today, the Nils Klim Prize was conferred upon Danish literary researcher Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen, by Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education Ola Borten Moe. This prize is worth NOK 500,000 and is awarded annually to a young scholar who has excelled in one of the research areas covered by the Holberg Prize. The recipient must be from, or working in, a Nordic country and under the age of 35 at the time of the nomination deadline.

Zetterberg-Nielsen is Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. She is also a member of the Danish Young Academy. She receives the Prize for her research into the history of the Danish novel, its narrative structure and its fictionality, as well as how literature relates to the world of individual and social experiences.

‘I want to express my gratefulness not only for receiving the prize, but for the Holberg week as a whole – and what it stands for: A celebration of science, and the humanities’, said the Nils Klim Laureate in her acceptance speech.

‘I have made 18th century novels such as Niels Klim my subject area, not just for the interest of history itself, but also for the answers to the present and the future that may lie hidden in the past’, Zetterberg-Nielsen explained. 

‘A celebration in the name of Holberg’s Niels Klim is, therefore, a celebration: 1) of historical beginnings; 2) of science and fiction; and 3) of resistance to mis-information and superstition,’ she continued. ‘I could not be prouder to be the recipient of a prize with that name.’

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Joan Martinez-Alier

The 2023 Holberg Prize was awarded to Catalan scholar Joan Martinez-Alier for his ground-breaking research in ecological economics, political ecology and environmental justice.

Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen

The 2023 Nils Klim Prize was awarded to Danish literary researcher Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen for her research into the history of the Danish novel, its narrative structure and its fictionality.

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