Jerry Kyriakopoulos, a DES student, was awarded by the University College of Dublin (UCD) in the context of the International Young Philosopher Awards (IYPA)

We are delighted and proud to advise that Jerry’s project on Belonging was awarded Runner Up for the age category 12-13 Years of the International Young Philosopher Awards 2023. The International Young Philosopher Awards (IYPA) is the University College of Dublin (UCD) philosophical initiative; since the launch of the Irish Young Philosopher Awards in 2017, it has become a major intellectual and educational event in Ireland which has also grown into an International Award forum that invites students from around the world to partake in philosophical thinking and discussion.

This is a prestigious award, and the IYPA Team commended Jerry on his project’s outstanding effort and the quality and depth of philosophical thinking. The UCD’s IYPA team also wrote that this is a beautiful achievement, especially given that so many outstanding projects were submitted; they hope that Jerry will keep doing philosophy and continue his philosophical thinking as he is gifted. 

This year’s core subject selected by UCD was belonging as it “seems to constitute a crucial aspect of our lives and has been related to a fundamental need for human interdependence or to be accepted as a valuable member of a group, for example, in terms of family, friends, colleagues, nation-states, the world, and so on. Belonging becomes ever more important when people face sudden displacement because of war, poverty, and the climate crisis, or due to experiences of exclusion, racism, gender and sexual discrimination, for example.”