The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2021 European Research Prize. The €20,000 prize will be awarded to a faculty-led interdisciplinary team based in Europe to conduct original research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Envisioning Responsible Relationships with Materiality.” The European Research Prize was created in 2021 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.
Port Hedland WA, Australia, 2021. © Google.
Iker Gil, Executive Director of the SOM Foundation
According to a United Nations Environment Programme report published in 2020 “natural resource extraction and processing still account for more than 90 percent of global biodiversity loss and water stress, and around half of global greenhouse gas emissions.” In a context of global environmental crisis and enduring resource inequality, it is essential to continue to reevaluate our relationship with materiality.
This year’s topic seeks to explore materiality from the micro- to the macroscale, bringing together designers and researchers from multiple disciplines in order to envision sustainable, responsible, and ethical relationships with materials and the communities that they come from. How do we shape nonexploitative networks of extraction, production, distribution, and waste? What type of social, cultural, and environmental landscapes do those new networks define? What are the roles and responsibilities of nations, corporations, communities, and individuals in shaping these networks? What are ways to limit the long-term impact on Earth of the human consumption of materials? And what material innovations—technical or in their application—present new possibilities?
Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. CST on Friday, November 8, 2021. More details, including eligibility and application requirements, are available on the application page.
