It is open to a graduating thesis at the PhD level, with an award of 2,000€. We will consider submissions that have been accepted by an institution of higher education since 2022 in English or if in Spanish, Italian, German or Portuguese accompanied by a short article-length summary in English (3000 to 6000 words).

Applications are only accepted in electronic forms, to be sent before or at the very latest on June 30, 2025, to the following address: scherrer@uni-kassel.de

Professor Altvater was among the few academics in Germany who based his analysis of economic and political development on a critical reading of Marxian approaches to the cycles of growth, recession and crisis in modern capitalism. From the early 1970s until his death on the 1st of May 2018, his academic and political work also addressed the market rationality that enabled the destruction of nature, human labour, and all sorts of non-human life.

The prize aims to encourage young scholars to continue the tradition of critical thought about the degradation and destruction of nature as the ‘price of progress’ that Professor Altvater represented so outstandingly.

For any questions and further information, contact Prof. Dr. Christoph Scherrer: scherrer@uni-kassel.de