The Pisa conference was also the occasion for presenting three of the ECPR's prizes. The first was the ECPR's Lifetime Achievement Award for an outstanding contribution to European political science, which went to an American: Philippe Schmitter (European University, Florence, and formerly Stanford University). Second, the annual Jean Blondel Ph.D. Prize was awarded to Tanja Aalberts (Leiden University) for her dissertation on the politics of sovereignty. Finally, the Mattei Dogan Foundation Prize in European Political Sociology went to Giovanni Sartori (professor emeritus, University of Florence and Columbia University).