The Balzan Foundation collects scientific contributions, and dissertations from its prizewinners for periodic publications. The Balzan Papers journal has been digital since 2024, and here, some updates on the research projects of the Balzan prizewinners are also gathered.
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recent papers
Marco Ferrari
How many species of humans were there in prehistoric times? In tackling this question, Ferrari presents theories of human evolution, showing that we, Homo sapiens, are unique and alone – the last survivors of an evolutionary “bush” that once had a wealth of species.
Michaël Gillon
An update on Gillon’s Balzan Project, a major contribution to the success of SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing UltracOOl Stars) and to the study of the diversity of rocky exoplanets orbiting very low-mass stars and their potential habitability.
Luca Sciortino
In his interview with Prizewinner Lorraine Daston (2024 History of Science), Luca Sciortino explores the central questions of her work, illustrating her vision of the history of science while expanding and clarifying some of her research findings to shed light on problems that afflict humanity today.
Joan Martínez Alier
Martínez Alier reflects on four decades of work in ecological economics, comparative and statistical political ecology, and environmental justice, highlighting the Atlas of Environmental Justice (www.ejatlas.org), his primary focus over the past ten years.
Willerslev’s Balzan Research Project addresses the computational challenges posed by vast databases of sequence data, aiming to improve both the speed and accuracy of taxonomic assignments of environmental DNA and ancient DNA.
Francesco Ranci
Can democratic societies resist authoritarian opposition without becoming authoritarian themselves? Ranci revisits Plato’s account of Socrates’ death against the backdrop of Athenian democracy and wonders about democracy’s fate in today’s globalized world.
