Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Leibniz-Gemeinschaft

Berlin Science Prize for Director of the Leibniz Centre for General Linguistics Berlin

27.05.2024

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Artemis Alexiadou, Director of the Leibniz Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS), will be awarded the Berlin Science Prize 2023 this evening by Governing Mayor Kai Wegner at a ceremony in the Rotes Rathaus. The prize honours both her outstanding research achievements in linguistics and her significant contributions to strengthening Berlin as an internationally visible science location.

Artemis Alexiadou was nominated twice for the prize. Both the President of the Leibniz Association, Prof. Dr. Martina Brockmeier, and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin nominated her. She is thus also being honoured as a special role model for successful cooperation between universities and non-university research institutions in Berlin.

In his press release, Governing Mayor Kai Wegner explains: "It is a great pleasure for me to award the Berlin Science Prize 2023 to two people who have achieved outstanding results with their research and are thus also promoting Berlin worldwide as a place of excellence in research. With their work, the award winners once again illustrate the diversity of Berlin's research landscape. They strengthen Berlin as a centre of science and are role models for many young students and young scientists. Congratulations on the Science Prize 2023!"

Artemis Alexiadou on the award: "I am delighted to receive this recognition for the work that I have done together with my team at the Leibniz Centre for General Linguistics and our partners at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The award will motivate us to continue our research and develop practical solutions for current challenges."

Alexiadou has been Director of the ZAS since 2022. She also holds an S-Professorship for "General Linguistics" at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Previously, she was Professor of English Studies at HU Berlin and the University of Stuttgart, among others. Alexiadou researches the theory of syntax and morphology, cross-linguistic variation and so-called heritage languages. Her research has been honoured with various national and international awards in the past. In 2014, she received the most important German research prize, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. In 2016, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, awarded her an honorary doctorate. Since joining AcademiaNet in 2010, a platform for excellent female academics, she has also been awarded many other honorary memberships, most recently by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2022) and the Linguistic Society of America (2024).

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The Berlin Science Prize was awarded for the first time in 2008 and has honoured outstanding achievements in science and research every year since then. The decisive criterion for awarding the prize is not only scientific excellence but also the possibility of practical realisation of the research. The main prize is endowed with 40,000 euros, the young talent prize with 10,000 euros. The prize money benefits the institutions at which the outstanding achievements were made.