Carl Folke awarded the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences

Carl Folke, founder and chair of the board of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and director of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, has been awarded the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences 2022.

The Heineken Prizes is considered the Netherlands’ most prestigious international science prizes. Every two years they are awarded to five distinguished researchers.

The laureates are selected by juries made up of members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Young Academy, and international experts. The Heineken science prizes include a monetary reward of USD 200,000.

According to the jury, Folke has played a crucial role in a cross-disciplinary approach to more sustainable use of the earth's resources.

Furthermore, the establishment of institutions like the Stockholm Resilience Centre has allowed scientists from very different disciplines to work together to solve sustainability issues on a global level.

About the Heineken Prizes

The Heineken Prizes were instituted in 1964 by Alfred H. Heineken (1923–2002) in honour of his father Dr Henry P. Heineken (1886–1971). In that year the Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics was awarded for the first time.

It has since been joined by five other Heineken Prizes: the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art (1988), for Medicine (1989), for Environmental Sciences (1990) and for History (1990), and the C.L. Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science (2006).

Since 2010 future generations are also celebrated. Four highly promising young researchers working at Dutch research institutes receive the Heineken Young Scientists Awards. Alfred Heineken’s daughter, Charlene L. de Carvalho-Heineken (b. 1954), is continuing this tradition as chair of the Alfred Heineken Fondsen Foundation and the Dr A.H. Heineken Foundation for Art, which finance the prizes.