“For challenging established premises”: Bina Agarwal Wins Prestigious Prize

Professor Bina Agarwal, former UNRISD Board Member and scholar, has been awarded the prestigious Balzan prize for her work on women and agriculture within gender studies. “I am greatly honoured to receive this prize,” she said, “ and especially value the visibility this affords to the needs and achievements of women farmers working in the Global South”.

The citation for the award highlights three ground-breaking aspects of Prof. Agarwal’s work:

"For challenging established premises in economics and the social sciences by using an innovative gender perspective;
for enhancing the visibility and empowerment of rural women in the Global South;
for opening new intellectual and political pathways in key areas of gender and development"

The Balzan Prize, one of the world’s top social science prizes, comes with an award of CHF 750,000, half of which must be dedicated to research projects, preferably carried out by young scholars.

An award ceremony will be held in Bern, Switzerland, on 17 November 2017 in the Federal Council Hall.

The aim of the International Balzan Prize Foundation is to “promote culture, the sciences and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace and fraternity among peoples throughout the world.” It was founded in 1956 by Lina Balzan in honour of her father Eugenio, former co-owner of the Italian newspaper of the Corriere della Sera who fled fascism in 1930s Italy and took up residence in Switzerland.

Bina Agarwal was a member of UNRISD’s Board from 2009 to 2016.