Award Topics
"Re-aligning Values in a Transforming World Order: What needs preserving, reevaluating, and redefining?"
The theme of the 2025 Sakıp Sabancı International Research Awards was "Re-aligning Values in a Transforming World Order: What needs preserving, reevaluating, and redefining?"
The Special Jury Prize, presented as part of the 2025 Sakıp Sabancı
International Research Awards, was awarded to Wendy Brown, a UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, academic, political theorist, and social theorist.
Wendy Brown, a highly influential political and social theorist who offers a powerful critique of changing values in an era of globalization, neoliberalism, and democratic decline, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her academic interests include the history of political theory, feminist theory, contemporary critical legal theory, 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy, and contemporary American political culture. Her work has been translated into over twenty languages. She has lectured worldwide and has held numerous prestigious fellowships and visiting professorships. She has recently served as visiting professor at Columbia University, Cornell University, Birkbeck College, University of London, and the London School of Economics.
THE ESSAY WINNERS
Uğur Aytaç, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Utrecht University
“What is the Point of Social Media? Aligning Corporate Purpose with Democratic Values”
Cenk Özbay, Sabancı University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
“When Values Skirmish. Religion, Sexuality, and the End of ‘Mutual Exclusion’ in Turkey’s Backsliding Democracy”
Vafa Ghazavi, University of Sydney / School of Social and Political Sciences
“Restless Freedom in a Broken World”
JURY
The jury, chaired by Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences faculty member Ayşe Betül Çelik, included Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean Prof. Dr. Meltem Müftüler-Baç, Sabancı University Board of Trustees member Melisa Sabancı Tapan, Laurier Political Science Department faculty member Prof. Kim Rygiel, SOAS University of London International Relations Professor Fiona Adamson, University College London Faculty Member Prof. Sir Geoff Mulgan, and Lund University Political Science Professor Karin Aggestam.
2025
2025