In January 2025 the call for the third International Science Prize 2025 was issued globally on the following theme:

Deadline for submissions of applications and nominations: 31 May 2025

The foundation accepts until the deadline of 31 May 2025.

Applications may be submitted by scholars with a PhD from any university or research institute globally.

Nominations may be made by:

• scholars (professors) and heads of departments and institutes
• by publishers who have published scientific books in English since 2020-2025 on the specific theme of 2025;
• and by University Committees globally who have passed PhD dissertations and of habilitations (advanced PhDs) that have been published as a book or as a manuscript that has not not yet been published.

In addition to the International Science Prize 2025 the Global Jury of the HGBS ISP 2025 may award again:

• 1 to 3 International Recognitions for unpublished manuscripts, e.g. based on PhD dissertations and habilitations which implies a book contract for the peer-reviewed book series: The Anthropocene: Politics - Economy - Society - Science (APESS) published by Springer Nature Switzerland.
• The International Science Prize 2025 consists of a certificate with a prize money of 3.000 € .
• one to three international recognitions with the award of a commitment for a publication agreement by Springer Nature in the APESS Series with a honorarium between 900, 1200 and 1500 € after publication of the manuscript as a book.

The third International Science Prize 2025 will be awarded on 9 October 2025 in the Hall of the Town Council in Mosbach in Baden Württemberg in South Germany.

The work by the applicant must be innovative, single authored and in English. This work may be both an unpublished scientific manuscript or may have been published as a peer reviewed monograph. The HGBS Science Prize comprises of a certificate, a financial award of 3.000 € for. The prize recipient is expected to give a 30 minute acceptance speech presenting the approach and its key innovative ideas and results of this work in English.

More Information on the International Science Prize 2025 (ISP 2025) you find here:

• Call for 2025 Science Prize
• to new theme of ISP 2025

• Peace and Ecology as two distinct research programmes in the social sciences have evolved since the 1950s and 1970s and have coexisted without a joint research perspective.
• Peace Research emerged between World War I and World War II in the idealist or Kantian tradition of international relations that offered critiques of the new realist tradition in international law and politics that prevailed after World War II.
• Peace Research started in North America and Scandinavia and spread in the 1970s to other parts of the world after the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) had been established in 1964.
• The “ecology concept” was coined in the 1860s by Ernst Häckel, a German biologist. Since World War II the concept widened as “deep ecology”, “human ecology”, “political ecology”, “social ecology”, “geoecology” and “ecofeminism”.
• In political science and international relations ecological perspectives, environmental studies started since the 1960s and research on global environmental change followed in the 1980s.
• Peace Research and Environmental Studies have coexisted as two research programmes with little conceptual, theoretical and empirical interchange.
• Paul J. Crutzen, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, coined the Anthropocene concept during a discussion in February 2000 in Cuernavaca as a New Epoch in Earth’s History. (see: Brauch 2025, open access)
• The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposed in 2019 as its start the years 1945 (first nuclear weapon test in Alomogordo) and 1950 (when the great acceleration started).
• In early March 2024 bodies of the global geological community have not accepted this proposal. However, this decision will not affect the use of the Anthropocene concept by other disciplines.

The Hans Günter Brauch Foundation (HGBF) on Peace and Ecology in the Anthropocene (PEA) was established on 8 May 2020 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and of the liberation from Fascism to combine a joint peace research and ecology perspective on the new challenges facing humankind’s survival in the Anthropocene.

The HGBF on Peace and Ecology in the Anthropocene supports globally scientific research and locally education in secondary schools in the county where the founder was born and has lived. The HGBF funds local educational prizes for grammar or high school students and globally this international science prize. Both Prizes will be awarded jointly to enhance the exchange of scientific results to secondary schools and the cooperation between scientists and pupils.

Between peace and security issues on the one hand and environment and sustainable development problems on the other, various relationships and linkages have been addressed in the social science literature since the 1960s in the Anthropocene Epoch:

• early conceptual debate on linkages between peace and the environment (since 1980s);
• conceptual díscussion on environmental and ecological security (since 1989);
• research on the impacts of weapons and wars on the environment (Westing et al.);
• impact of environmental degradation and stress on environmental conflict (Baechler, Homer-Dixon);
• environmental peace-making (Conca) and role of the environment in post-conflict peacebuilding;
• emerging discourse and policy debate on climate change and conflicts (since 1989);
• early approaches to peace ecology and their shortcomings (Kyrou, Amster, Oswald/Brauch and Brauch 2021).
• theoretical and empirical work on sustainability transition, transformation of the economy, society and political realm and climate neutrality.

These manifold research themes have not yet resulted in a peace ecology research programme in the Anthropocene Epoch.

The first International Science Prize of the HGB Foundation was awarded on 14 July 2023 in Mosbach Germany to Prof. Dr. Tobias Ide who teaches at Murdoch University in Perth (Australia) and at Hiroshima University in Hiroshima (Japan).

The second International Science Prize of the HGB Foundation was awarded on 10 October 2024 in Mosbach to Prof. Dr. Gregory Thaler who teaches since September 2024 at Oxford University and to Dr. Victor Tsilonis (Thessaloniki, Greece).

The work by the applicant must be innovative, single authored and in English. This work may be both an unpublished scientific manuscript or may have been published as a peer-reviewed monograph since January 2020.

The HGBS Science Prize comprises a certificate, a financial award of 3.000 €, a visit to the award ceremony in Mosbach. The prize recipient is expected to give an acceptance speech of 30 minutes in English presenting the scientific approach and its key innovative ideas and results of this work.