Welcome to the Academy
of Science  of Unknowingness
For the Cultivation of Unknowingness as Complementary Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities

The Academy of Science of Unknowingness awards the Ignorabimus 2024 for the promotion of Unknowingness in the sciences. This prize is awarded as part of an essay competition.

The prize question is:
 
What can we with certainty not know?  

First prize 5,000 Euro

Four second prizes of 1,000 Euro each 
Conditions of participation:  
  1. By participating in the contest, participants accept the following conditions of participation.  
  2. Minimum length 4,000 characters (including spaces).  
  3. Entries for the contest please send only as e-mail to: ignorabimus2024(at)t-online.de  
  4. Entries can only be written in German or English.  
  5. The deadline for entries is 29.02.2024.  
  6. All entries will be submitted anonymously to the jury. The names of the authors will be communicated to it only after the final decision.  
  7. The jury of the Ignorabimus will make a pre-selection among the entries by excluding the entries that a 2/3 majority of the jury considers less interesting (shortlist).  
  8. This pre-selection will be published on the website of the Academy of Science of Unknowingness - without mentioning the names of the authors - until the award ceremony.  
  9. The jury will then deliberate and decide on the prize winners. The shortlisted contributions that do not win a prize in the end will not be published further by the Academy after the award ceremony.  
  10. The winners will be notified in writing by 31.05.2024 at the latest.  
  11. If a printed publication of the contribution is to be realized in English after the end of the competition, the authors who have submitted their contribution in German and want to be involved in the printed publication must have prepared an English translation by 30.6.2024 and submitted it to us subsequently.  
  12. By submitting an essay, authors or author collectives agree that the Academy of Science of Unknowingness may store their personal data and use it in the context of the competition. All participants must provide their name, date of birth, address, email address, telephone number, and institutional affiliation, if any, when submitting their essay. We will delete the personal data of the authors of the non-awarded entries after the conclusion of the contest.  
  13. Please send your personal data in a separate file. The text document must not contain any references to the author. Your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties without your explicit consent and will be used exclusively for the purpose of the contest.  
  14. Each author of a contribution agrees to waive all claims arising from the copyright of his/her submitted contribution in case of publication on the internet in favour of the Academy of Science of Unknowingness as publisher. Otherwise the copyrights remain with the authors.  
  15. The names of the winners may subsequently be published by the Academy of Science of Unknowingness in any form and in all media. Photographs of winners taken or submitted to the Academy in connection with the awarding of prizes may also be published.  
  16. The jury is granted the right, in case of qualitatively equal submissions, to divide the 1st prize equally among the authors of the qualitatively equal essays.  
  17. The decisions of the Jury of the Academy of Science of Unknowingness are final. The right to appeal is excluded. [The jury members will be determined by the Academy].  
  18. Jury members agree not to submit essays themselves.  
  19. All submitted essays must be unpublished and written independently by the author or the collective authors. Likewise, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the preparation of essays is not permitted. No sources other than those indicated may be used. All quotations and borrowed text must be marked as such.  
  20. Violations of the above conditions of participation will result in disqualification from the competition. 
  21. The Academy of the Science of Unknowingness, c/o Hans Schwarzlow, Arenholzsteig 3, 12103 Berlin, Germany. www.nichtwissenschaft.de  
     
    For press inquiries and further information about the competition, please contact:  
    Hans Schwarzlow: info.nichtwissenschaft[at]t-online.de