ISD’s Julia Ebner receives the prestigious Open Society Prize 2024

On 21 June, ISD Senior Research Fellow Julia Ebner received the Central European University’s (CEU) Open Society Prize 2024 for her remarkable scholarly contribution to the field of online radicalisation. The award ceremony took place in Vienna during CEU’s graduation ceremony.

As CEU President and Rector Shalini Randeria explained during the ceremony, this award recognises Julia’s courage and applauds her extraordinary research analysing far-right and Islamist extremism, uncovering recruitment strategies and providing unique insights into how to counter these threats to democracy. Julia’s notable work with ISD includes the reports she co-authored with ISD’s Jacob Davey, The Fringe Insurgency and ‘The Great Replacement’: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism’, which explore the mainstreaming of the ‘new’ extreme right and the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory respectively.

During her speech, Julia said:

“I am deeply moved and honoured to receive the CEU Open Society Prize. The global shift towards an increasingly illiberal political landscape makes the study of anti-democratic, anti-minority and anti-science mobilisation even more important. Against this background, this award is not only an extraordinary recognition of my work, but an encouraging signal to others whose work focuses on analysing, exposing and preventing the drivers and mechanisms of today’s global resurgence of the far-right.”

The CEU Open Society Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding individual or group of people whose achievements have contributed to the promotion of the core principles of open societies. Previous winners include Sir Karl Popper, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature Svetlana Alexievich, former UN Secretary General Kofi Anna and Joseph E. Stiglitz.

CEU President and Rector Shalini Randeria awards Julia Ebner with the Open Society Prize 2024 at CEU’s graduation ceremony in Vienna.

Julia Ebner gives a speech at the CEU’s graduation ceremony after receiving the Open Society Prize 2024.