Congratulations to Dr. Igor Grossmann, Professor in Psychology, for winning the prestigious Humboldt Research Award, also known as the Humboldt Prize, from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award recognizes him as one of the most innovative behavioural scientists of his generation.
The Humboldt prize is awarded for fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights with lasting impact. It also provides funding to build sustained research partnerships with Germany.
The Humboldt site notes Grossmann’s work has transformed the study of wise reasoning by showing how intellectual humility, cultural context, and metacognitive calibration improve judgment under uncertainty. His work integrates approaches from cognitive and social psychology, computational modeling, and big-team science.
University of Freiburg’s Professor Dr. Karl Christoph Klauer, one of Europe’s key mathematical and social psychologists, nominated Grossmann.
“In the span of two decades, Professor Igor Grossmann has achieved what most scholars cannot accomplish in one domain, let alone three: he has transformed the ancient philosophical inquiry of wisdom into rigorous empirical science, revolutionized how we track and understand cultural evolution, and pioneered the scientific forecasting of societal change,” wrote Dr. Klauer in the nomination.
“I am deeply honoured to receive this recognition. The Humboldt tradition has long stood for the kind of scholarship I value most: intellectually ambitious, interdisciplinary, and internationally engaged,” said Grossmann.
“I look forward to collaborating with leading scholars in Germany to advance computational and culturally attuned approaches to wise judgment in an age of radical uncertainty, strengthening Canadian-German and transatlantic research ties.”
Igor Grossman, professor of psychology and director of the Wisdom and Culture Lab at Waterloo.