Hartmut Rosa was awarded the Leibniz Prize

The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is the most important research award in Germany. The Leibniz Programme, established in 1985, aims to improve the working conditions of outstanding researchers, expand their research opportunities, relieve them of administrative tasks, and help them employ particularly qualified early career researchers. A maximum of €2.5 million is provided per award.

The jury states: "The Leibniz Prize goes to Hartmut Rosa in recognition of his groundbreaking work in the field of normatively based critical analysis of modern societies. His contributions to the question of which social dynamics promote or hinder the possibilities of a good life are read and discussed internationally in both academia and society at large. In his study Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne (2005), which was published under the English title Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, Rosa provides a comprehensive, philosophically grounded sociological analysis of the dynamics of acceleration through time that shape modern societies while at the same time posing enormous challenges to the individuals in these societies. Rosa also developed a theory of “world relations”: partly as a critique of capitalist structures and their impact at the level of psychology and the living environment, and in dialogue with other critical theories, this gave rise to another comprehensive theoretical assessment – the book Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung (2016), which was published under the English title Resonance. A Sociology of our Relationship to the World. Rosa is regarded far beyond Germany as one of the most important social thinkers of our time."

"I am very pleased to receive this award, which is also a tribute to the good research conditions and cooperation with colleagues from Germany and abroad at the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt and the Institute of Sociology at the University of Jena," says Hartmut Rosa.