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The 11th CEISAL Congress, held at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, France, in June 2025, focused on the theme: Social, environmental, and climate justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. The conferences, round tables, and symposiums succeeded in developing and deepening scientific analysis, seeking to respond to and explore various topics within the framework of this theme. 
Therefore, in the fourth edition of the “Professor Andrzej Dembicz Award for the best doctoral thesis on Latin America and the Caribbean” competition, theses focusing on the study and research of “social, environmental, and climate justice in Latin America and the Caribbean” will be accepted. This will allow us to evaluate the scientific framework established by the 11th CEISAL conference.
These theses must comply with the General Criteria and Rules of the Competition and the specific requirements set out in this announcement: Full text of the announcement.

General Guidelines
Individuals who have graduated and obtained a doctoral degree between November 29, 2023, and November 29, 2026, from universities in Europe are eligible to participate. Submissions must be individual (not group) works. Participants must have completed the entire curriculum by the date of submission, including the defense of the thesis before an examining board. To participate in the contest, the following must be submitted: 

• a summary of the thesis, maximum 20 pages;
• the complete work, either in the form of a thesis or a series of articles (this cannot exceed 500 A4 pages) in pdf format;
• a resume;
• a statement that the same thesis has not been submitted to another contest.

 Contributions will be judged by an Evaluation Committee based on the quality and relevance of the research, the appropriateness of the methodology chosen, the original contributions made, and publications in international conferences and journals that demonstrate the impact of the thesis in the field.
To submit a doctoral thesis to the competition, all documents must be sent to the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Important dates

• Closing date for receipt of theses and other documents: November 29, 2026
• Notification of acceptance: March 1, 2027
• Publication of the five finalist theses: December 1, 2027
• Announcement of the final results of the competition: February 1, 2028.

The prizes
The winning doctoral thesis will receive a prize of €1,500.00 (one thousand five hundred euros) from the Professor Andrzej Dembicz Foundation, a medal, and a diploma.
CEISAL will cover the winner's travel and accommodation expenses so that they can collect their prize.
The jury's decision will be announced publicly and the prize will be awarded during the 12th CEISAL Congress in Valencia, Spain, in 2028.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the III. Competition for the Professor Andrzej Dembicz Prize, organised by CEISAL (European Council for Social Research on Latin America) and our Foundation, is Carolina Miranda de Oliveira from the University of Cádiz (Spain) with the thesis “Límites y posibilidades: un estudio de un lugar donde existe una maestría en lengua indígena sin contribuir al fortalecimiento de la lengua y la cultura indígenas” (link to the thesis: https://rodin.uca.es/handle/10498/31589).

Due to the high calibre of the work submitted, the evaluation committee decided to award with a diploma the thesis by Gianfranco Selgas from Stockholm University (Sweden) entitled “Regionalismo ensamblado. Medios de comunicación, modernidad y reacción político-cultural en América Latina (1930-1940)” (link to the published version: https://www.iberoamericana-vervuert.es/FichaLibro.aspx?P1=244465).

Composition of the evaluation committee:

• Oscar Barboza Lizano (Costa Rica), PhD
• Agata Błoch (Poland), PhD
• Carlo Builes Tobón (Colombia), PhD
• Katarzyna Dembicz (Poland), PhD

Six dissertations were submitted for the competition, defended in the period from November 2019 to November 2023. Five of them qualified for the second stage of evaluation, from which the winner was selected. Below is the list of the theses that were assessed in the second stage:

1. Carolina Miranda, Límites y Posibilidades: un estudio de caso sobre cómo un Curso de agisterio Indígena puede o no contribuir al fortalecimiento de la cultura y lengua indígena, Universidad de Cádiz, España.
2. David Cardoso, Abigarramiento y Hegemonía Historia y política en el pensamiento andino, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España.
3. Giancarlo Selgas, Regionalismo ensamblado Medioambiente, modernidad y reacción político-cultural en Latinoamérica (1930-1940), Universidad de Estocolmo, Suecia.
4. Lucas Soares, AS POLÍTICAS PÚBLICAS DE LUTA CONTRA A ESCRAVIDÃO CONTEMPORÂNEA NO BRASIL, Universidad de Salamanca, España.
5. Ruth Álvarez, Los pobladores negros del Darién en el siglo XVIII, Universidad de Barcelona, España.