The Erasmus Medal is the highest award that the Academia Europaea can bestow. It recognizes an individual’s substantial life-long scholarly achievement. The prize carries no financial benefit and is open to nominations of candidates who are members and non-members. Non-members also receive the honour of immediate election to the Academy.
The Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europaea is awarded to a European scholar who has maintained, over a sustained period of time, an outstanding level of international scholarship as recognized by peers. It is perhaps the highest recognition for purely scholarly achievements that the Academy can bestow on a scholar. The Medal is awarded at the Annual Conference of the Academy and on that occasion the recipient will give the Annual Erasmus Lecture.
Throughout his professional life, Professor Philippe Aghion has been affiliated with top academic institutions in Europe and the United States in business and economics. His current appointments include the Collège de France, the London School of Economics, and the INSEAD Business School; he is also an Invited Professor at the Paris School of Economics. He was a Professor at Harvard University, and at University College London, Official Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A graduate from the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, he has a Diplôme d'études approfondies in Mathematical Economics from University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, and a PhD from Harvard University.
He is a truly global giant in his academic field, with a strong European basis and worldwide recognition owing to an enormous number of publications in top scientific journals, through widely recognized books and many influential societal policy debates. As one of the world’s leading theorists, he collaborates intensively with the best empirical researchers in order to deal with pressing challenges of high policy relevance and to secure attention not only from the academic community but also from policymakers and the wider public.
His major ground-breaking research relates to the economics of growth and contract theory, in which he developed, along with Peter Howitt, Rachel Griffith and others, the Schumpeterian Growth paradigm by reviving Schumpeter with sound theoretical considerations and by providing testable implications. Famous books with P. Howitt include Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press, 1998) and The Economics of Growth (MIT Press, 2009) and, with Rachel Griffith, Competition and Growth (MIT Press, 2006). His research is updated in The Power of Creative Destruction (together with Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel; Harvard University Press, 2021) where he discusses strategies to tame capitalism to ensure future innovations and wellbeing. Based on his outstanding reputation, Philippe Aghion has already received a number of awards, including the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45 (2001), the John Von Neumann Award (2009), and the BBVA ‘Frontier of Knowledge Award’ (2020 with Peter Howitt).
The committee feel justifiably pleased to award the Academia Europaea Erasmus Medal to Professor Aghion, who continues to demonstrate the very best achievements in scholarship and excellence in his field.
Professor Aghion received the medal and delivered the accompanying Academia Europaea – Heinz Nixdorf Erasmus Lecture ‘The promise of the creative destruction paradigm’ at the annual conference of the Academia Europaea, Barcelona on 26–27 October 2022.
Andreu Mas-Colell MAE gave the laudation. He is a Professor of Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.
The Award is sponsored by the Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung
1. Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung is – together with Stiftung Westfalen – one of two non-profit foundations which have been established from the assets of the estate of the entrepreneur Heinz Nixdorf, who died in 1986. The foundation promotes the following:
a. (Advanced) professional education, especially in the field of modern technology purposes,
b. The sciences in respect of research and teaching, especially in the field of information technology,
c. The liberal and democratic governmental system, especially the ‘Soziale Marktwirtschaft’,
d. Public health,
e. Sports.
The foundation realizes its purposes primarily in cooperation with other non-profit institutions.
2. Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung promotes among other things the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum in Paderborn. This is a non-profit institution combining, in a unique way, the classic historic dimension of a museum with the current and future-oriented topics of a forum.
Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum is the largest computer museum in the world.
