Letten Prize Day 2025 takes place on 4 September with a daytime seminar and the award ceremony in the evening. The event will be livestreamed on the Letten Prize website, YouTube, and Facebook.
Category: News
Seminar on Nurturing Young Researchers in the Nordics
Join us on the 16th of January for an inspiring seminar on empowering young scholars and their groundbreaking work, bringing together two prestigious prizes and distinguished laureates for a seminar in Oslo. Sign up for the event here.
This event is a collaboration between the Letten Prize and the Holberg Prize, which awards the Nils Klim Prize. Focused on fostering the next generation of researchers, the seminar offers engaging talks, lively discussions and valuable networking opportunities.
Among the speakers are:
- Paula Moraga won the Letten Prize 2023 “For her groundbreaking research ambitions towards early detection of epidemics and designing control strategies worldwide, through the development of innovative and cost-effective disease surveillance systems at finer spatial and temporal scales than currently available”. Moraga will give a greeting at the start of the seminar.
- Cathrine Thorleifsson, the 2023 recipient of The Research Council of Norway’s Award for Excellence in Communication of Science , a distinguished social anthropologist, offers reflections from her research on ethnic identity and globalization.
- John-Andrew McNeish, a professor specializing in natural resource governance and pro-dean for research at the Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, contributes insights from his pioneering work on sustainability and development. McNeish is the scientific director of Empowered Futures: A Global Research School Navigating Low Carbon Energy Transition and Controversy.
- Michael Woods is Professor of Human Geography at Aberystwyth University, UK, specialising in research on the global countryside, spatial justice and disruptive politics. Through projects including ERC Advanced Grants GLOBAL-RURAL and Rural-Spatial-Justice, Horizon-funded DERRG and IMAJINE, and the UKRI WISERD Civil Society Research Centre and Rural Wales Local Policy and Innovation Partnership, he has supervised 26 post-doctoral researchers. As Head of School and in a part-time role as Professor of Transformative Social Science he helped early career colleagues to develop their research capacity. He has contributed to ECR schools and workshops for Regional Studies Association, Learned Society of Wales, ESRS and others; and has experience as a grant panel chair, journal editor, and as a member of the Welsh Government’s Review of Student Finance and Higher Education Funding.
- Siddharth Sareen, 2023 Nils Klim Prize winner, explores critical topics in sustainability, energy justice, and social responsibility, drawing from his expertise as a researcher and public intellectual.
- Bjørn Enge Bertelsen is a professor of social anthropology, University of Bergen and offers some insights on research partnerships and collaborative research from the field of urban studies. Bertelsen is also the Academic Director of the Holberg Prize.
Program highlights include:
A keynote address by twice ERC Advanced Grant awardee Michael Woods sharing experiences in cultivating supportive research environments:
Unlocking the Future: Nurturing and Supporting New Researchers in Uncertain Times
How do we equip new researchers for uncertain times? As the world faces a climate crisis, geopolitical volatility, increasing social and economic polarisation, and new disruptive technologies, the nurturing and development of new generation researchers that will help society to negotiate the future has never been more important. Yet, the environment in which new researchers are starting their careers is also under pressure, with funding cuts, policy changes, political scrutiny and precarious employment. This talk draws on over 25 years’ experience of research leadership and working with new scholars to consider how a supportive research ecosystem for new researchers not only can be sustained, but also refashioned to equip and empower new researchers with the skills and capacities they will need to meet evolving challenges and expectations and to realise their potential to make a difference. It will present lessons for university leaders, senior academics, learned societies, funding bodies and early career researchers themselves.
A panel discussion with Cathrine Thorleifsson and John Andrew McNeish, moderated by Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, the Academic Director of the Holberg Prize, with reflections on the keynote, personal experiences, and advancing research and fostering opportunities in the Nordic region
Ample opportunities for networking and exchanging ideas in an inspiring setting.
Breakfast, lunch and light refreshments will be served during the seminar.
Why attend?
This seminar is the perfect venue for young researchers, experienced academics, and research enthusiasts eager to expand their networks and be inspired by some of the brightest minds in the field. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to gain insights from award-winning researchers and contribute to advancing research and fostering supportive environments in the Nordics.
Welcome to Kronesalen at Sentralen – where the future of research takes shape!
Programme:
08:15- 08:45 | Breakfast and mingling session
08:45 – 08:55 | Welcome and Opening Remarks
Speakers: Chair of the Letten Prize Board and Academic Director of the Holberg Prize
Brief overview of seminar objectives and the significance of nurturing young researchers.
08:55 – 09:00 | Digital greeting from the 2023 Letten Prize laureate, Paula Moraga
09:00 – 09:45 | Keynote Lecture: Unlocking the Future: Nurturing and Supporting New Researchers in Uncertain Times
Speaker: Michael Woods
09:45 – 10:30 | Panel Discussion
Moderator: Prof, Bjørn Enge Bertelsen, Academic Director of the Holberg Prize
Panelists: Keynote speaker Michael Woods, Cathrine Thorleifsson and John-Andrew McNeish.
Focus: Reflections on the keynote, personal experiences, and advancing research in the region, as well as promoting capacity-building and excellent research practices in Norway
10:30 – 10:45 | Audience Q&A
Open floor for participant questions to the keynote and panelists.
10:45 – 11:00 | Closing Remarks
Speakers: Chair of the Holberg Board, Jørgen Sejersted and a representative from the Letten Prize.
11:00 – 12:00 | Networking lunch
Call for applications
It has been two years since the first awarding of the Letten Prize. We now call for new applications. Do you know of a deserving young researcher who have conducted research aimed at solving global challenges within the fields of health, environment, and equality in all aspects of human life? Or perhaps this description fits you? Do not hesitate to review the criteria for Letten Prize applications and share the news with deserving colleges.
The winner is awarded 2 million NOK (ca. 181 000 EUR/211 000 USD) of which ¼ is for personal usage and ¾ is to be used for research activities.
The 2021 Letten Prize call for applications opens on November 10, 2020 and stays open until February 2, 2021. The application form will be available from September 10.
Successful Letten Prize Days
12-13 September 2018 the Young Academy of Norway, the Letten Foundation and Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo joined forces to celebrate the inaugural Letten Prize, awarded to Indian legal scholar Tarunabh Khaitan. Over the course of two days, a seminar on how research can solve global challenges and prize ceremony were held at the University of Oslo. A festive and colourful dinner at Hotel Continental marked the end of the very first Letten Prize Days. Member of the the Young Academy of Norway and the Letten Prize Committee, Katerini T. Storeng reports from the Letten Prize Days:
Major new Prize for young researcher awarded to Indian equality law expert
Tarunabh Khaitan, a lawyer from India, was awarded the Norwegian-based prize, worth 2 million NOK, or roughly 185000 GBP on September 13, for his contribution to addressing the structural inequalities that undermine social and economic development.
Khaitan´s work was cited in the Indian Supreme Court’s recent historic judgment decriminalizing gay sex, repealing a law dating from British colonial times.
This is one example of how his work has contributed directly to changing the interpretation of discrimination and minority rights, with implications beyond the LGBT community to other minorities discriminated on the basis of religion, caste or gender.
“It makes you proud to be Indian when your institutions do the right thing,” he told his audience at an award seminar in Oslo last week, commenting that he couldn’t have written the judgement better himself even if he had tried”.
The implications of this ruling extend far beyond India, however, not least to all the other Commonwealth countries that are still grappling with the consequences of an inherited British Penal Code that is inherently discriminatory.
Tarunabh Khaitan receiving the Letten Prize. From left: Magnus Aronsen (Chair of the Young Academy of Norway), Borghild Roald (Chair of the Letten Prize Board), winner Tarunabh Khaitan and Katerini T. Storeng (member of the Letten Prize Committee). Photo Øyvind Aukrust.
Mirroring the unsung heroes of international development
In many ways, Khaitan´s story mirrors that of a great many other unsung heroes of international development: Growing up in small-town, India, Khaitan’s life might have turned out very differently were it not for a serendipitous exposure to unwanted prospectus for law school that opened up a window of opportunity for addressing the stark inequalities of Indian society – a country where wealth is highly concentrated and discrimination in private employment and housing is legally permitted.
Today, Khaitan is Associate Professor of Law at Oxford, currently on leave to work at the University of Melbourne. Researching across the fields of law, political philosophy and ethics, he is a distinguished academic, recognized for his work on discrimination law. However, as a member of the Letten Prize selection committee, what impressed me most about Khaitan was his strong commitment to not only to understanding, but also to combatting the mechanisms that propagate violence and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, religion and caste.
One of the things that marks Khaitan’s work out is the way in which he has consistently engaged with civil society, politicians and other lawyers. He has helped to shift the conversation on discrimination in India and beyond, and demonstrated what academic research with societal relevance can look like. This is exactly the sort work that the Letten prize was established to support.
Tarunabh Khaitan in conversation with master of ceremony Asta B. Lydersen. Photo Øyvind Aukrust.
A prize for excellent research with societal impact
The prize itself is a novel initiative by the Young Academy of Norway, of which I am a member, and the Letten Foundation. It seeks explicitly to recognize the contribution of younger researchers in addressing global challenges across the fields of health, environment, development and equality. In doing so, it honours the legacy of Letten Saugstad, a Norwegian doctor and researcher who, until her death in 2014, fought for her conviction that health, environment and equality in all aspects of human life is key to a sustainable development and a better future for all.
As this year´s awardee, Khaitan was selected from among over 200 candidates – young researchers representing every continent and academic disciplines ranging from chemistry to anthropology. Unusually, because this new global prize will be distributed bi-annually, Khaitan will return in two years, at the moment of the next award, to report on what he has been able to do with the award.
Prize to be used to launch the ‘Indian Equality Law Program’
Khaitan will use his prize to launch the ‘Indian Equality Law Program’ at the Melbourne Law School, with an agenda for research training, engagement and dissemination. As Khaitan wrote in his motivation letter for the Letten Prize, India’s democratic institutions, albeit flawed, offer the possibility of change. By training a critical mass of equality scholars, the program he envisions can create a real impact.
The Letten Prize committee hopes that this, and the other awards it seeks to make, will raise public awareness of how research can be used to solve global human development challenges like the ones Khaitan has been addressing in his work.
My return to Oslo – an encounter with science and humanity
Reflections on the Letten Prize by Prof. Christian Hellmich, Co-director of JA-ÖAW.
During the Letten Prize Days we were lucky enough to have the wonderful company of representatives from some of The Young Academy of Norway’s sister academies. We are grateful to Prof. Christian Hellmich Co-director of JA-ÖAW for sharing his reflections on the days! Thanks and enjoy the read.
***
Having travelled extensively throughout Norway, with tent and interrail pass, in the summers of 1990 and 1992, it took me more than a quarter of a century to return to one of the most impressive European capitals: the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, formerly known as Christiania; Oslo.
In the summer of 2018, the Young Academy of Norway had invited the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (JA-ÖAW), to send a representative to the award ceremony and celebration of the Inaugural Letten Prize, scheduled for September 13, 2018. And as all my fellow co-directors of the JA-ÖAW had other, more urgent, commitments at that time, it was me who arrived, just on time at 2 p.m., in the elegant and uplifting surroundings of a 19th century architectural icon: the Gamle Festsal of the University of Oslo. Seconds later, I was embraced by crisp and clear, yet emotionally moving sounds played with great devotion, by a string quartett of four students from the Baratt Due Institute of Music, the finest of its kind in Norway.
With this, the scene was set to remember the benefactor of the Letten foundation: Prof. Letten F. Saugstad (1925-2014), an unparalleled pioneer at the cross roads of psychology and neurology, working throughout her life towards an embetterment of human health in the broadest sense; across a multitude of scientific, geographical, and cultural borders. Her legacy continues through Letten foundation-enabled research centers, which focus on health and disease of the brain (as part of the University of Oslo), as well as on health and education for the Mother Child Program in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Only a few months ago, the Letten foundation had joined forces with the Young Academy of Norway, in order to make Prof. Letten F. Saugstad’s legacy known at a bolder scale. The result had been the worldwide announcement of the first edition of the Letten Prize, to be awarded to individuals who contribute “in the fields of health, development, environment and equality in all aspects of human life.”
Tarunabh Khaitan receiving the very first Letten Prize – 13 September 2018. Photo: Øyvind Aukrust
Prof. Katerini Storeng, current board member of the Young Academy of Norway, reported that more than 200 highly qualified researchersfrom all over the world had applied. She described the the challenges the Young Academy Members and an international advisory board were facing when identifying only five finalists. Eventually, it was the Oxford- and Melbourne-affiliated Indian law scholar Prof. Tarunabh Khaitan, who turned out as the truly deserving winner. He is a pioneer in the intellectual perception of how discrimination of minorities works, and he has become a game changer in the legislation of post-colonial Commonwealth nations such as India.
From a personal perspective, I would consider Dr. Nassim El Achi from the American University of Beirut, one of the four remaining runners-up, as an equivally deserving candidate for the prize. She excels in chemistry and environmental management research; in order to supply Syrian refugees in Lebanon with what they need most urgently: clean water. She develops strategies for implementing rainwater harvesting technology in a new societal, cultural, and behavioral context. This is probably the most coining and radical realization of what I know as the overarching motto of my own university: technology for people – and even more so of the great motto of Prof. Letten F. Saugstad: thriving for the embetterment of human health.
In later discussions with members of the Young Academy of Norway, I learned about the enthusiasm, the energy, the optimism, and the great ambition of this now three year old institution, to help shaping science and society in Norway, towards a better future. This reminded me of the tales I know from the founding days of the then Young Curia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), which – meanwhile renamed to Young Academy – currently prepares the celebration of its 10th anniversary. Over these years the Young Academy has taken a fully established role as integral part of the General Assembly of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, has provided important incentives for long-term decisions in Austrian science policy, and takes every effort to maintain its status as a “class-free”, “border-less”, and largely autonomous body of excellence in science and society, both within the confines of the ÖAW, and beyond.
I am happy to take home, from my memorable September 13 in the heart of Oslo, the “spirit of Letten” as it was repeatedly referred to during the celebration: a spirit namely, of knowledge and love – of science and humanity.
Oslo and Vienna, September 14, 2018
Prof. Christian Hellmich
Co-director of JA-ÖAW
Director of the IMWS – Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures
of the TU Wien – Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria