The Barcelona City Council, with the Barcelona Knowledge Hub of the European Academy (managed by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation), annually awards the Barcelona Hypatia European Science Prize to a researcher based in Europe (not necessarily in the EU-27). The existence of the prize responds to a strategic choice by a city council interested in highlighting its city's scientific capital. Prizes give recognition and credit to those who receive them, but also to those who give them. There are many scientific prizes in the world, but they are typically international, national, or sub-national in scope. There are very few European ones. It is a surprising lack (the EU had them but, I don't know why, abolished them) and an opportunity for the Hypatia prize, which has already covered six editions, to establish itself as a European benchmark. The reputation of a prize is given by the list of its recipients. And here the prize's trajectory has been very good. In all six cases, the jury has chosen well. Among the awardees, László Lovász later received the Abel Prize (the Nobel Prize in Mathematics), Nancy Cartwright the BBVA Prize, and in September 2025 the jury conferred it to Philippe Aghion, a French economist, who a month later received the Nobel Prize. A positive side effect of the prize is that the awardees strengthen their ties with Catalonia. Thus, Aghion received the prize on June 15 in a solemn ceremony at the Saló de Cent, and on the 16th he gave a presentation at the Cercle d’Economia and on the 17th another, more academic, at the Summer Forum of the Barcelona School of Economics.

Philippe Aghion (Paris, 1956) won last year the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the impact of technology and innovation on economic development. Aghion, a professor at the prestigious Collège de France, Insead, and London School of Economics, currently focuses his work on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in growth and how Europe can improve its policies to reduce dependence on Chinese and American tech giants.