Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Szkudlarek from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Gdańsk has been awarded the Jan Hevelius Award for the year 2024 in the humanities and social sciences category. The award, presented for 38 years and known as the ‘Pomeranian Nobel Prize’, was given to prof. T. Szkudlarek for his outstanding achievements in the philosophy of education and conceptualisations of the relationship between culture, politics, identity and education.

The ceremony of awarding the Jan Hevelius Awards, which are given by the Award Committee headed by the President of the Gdańsk Branch of the PAS, prof. Grzegorz Węgrzyn, and the President of the Gdańsk Scientific Society, prof. Jerzy Błażejowski, as well as the Rectors of all state higher education institutions in Gdańsk, a representative of the Mayor of the City of Gdańsk and a representative of non-public higher education institutions in the Tricity, is traditionally held in the Main Town Hall. The winner in the science category was prof. dr hab. Rafał Dziadziuszko from the Medical University of Gdańsk. The Jan Hevelius statuettes by Prof. Jan Szczypko were presented to the awarded professors by Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Mayor of the City of Gdańsk, who said: ‘Thank you, professors, for the effort of your scientific work, which makes our lives better. For educating the next generation, because research is not without its continuators. And finally, for making Poland known internationally.’

Congratulations to the laureates were also expressed by the Deputy Voivode of Pomerania, Anna Olkowska-Jacyno, who emphasised that the award winners are always outstanding individuals: ‘The best of the best, meeting exacting scientific criteria and making a significant contribution to the research and academic community.’

Prof . Tomasz Szkudlak ‘s laudation was delivered by Prof. Jerzy Błażejowski, who emphasised the laureate's outstanding scientific and teaching merits and presented the main principles of his research: ‘Prof. Szkudlarek's work is interdisciplinary and combines pedagogy with sociology, philosophy, psychology, political science and cultural sciences to show a dynamic picture of transformations in the area of contemporary education. He constructs theoretical conceptualisations of reality that provide a starting point for the formation and verification of research hypotheses. His monographs, publications and presentations constitute a rich compendium of knowledge from the above-mentioned areas and provide unique insights into contemporary constructions of education and identity in the context of ongoing social transformations.’

The interplay between educational and social areas was also addressed by award winner Prof. T. Szkudlarek, saying what prompted him to address these topics: ‘As a person born in the People's Republic of Poland, like a large number of people here, I have always had a problem with the relationship to the social system and to authority, I have always tended to have a more anarchistic understanding of the relationship between the individual and the state. Consequently, when I was about to start my academic work, the most interesting, existentially grounded question was: what is the relationship of human freedom to the social system? We know from the achievements of the social sciences, sociology, political science or politics that we are formatted by the demands of the social system. And so the education system in the theory of the 1960s was described as having mainly the function of allocating labour power in society. This sounds terribly cynical - simply put, school is a production belt on which unformed individuals enter and have to be sorted so that they end up in the appropriate sectors of the economy. I have never in my life wanted to agree with such an understanding of education.’

Professor Tomasz Szkudlarek also thanked his wife, prof. Maria Mendel, who is also a recipient of the Jan Hevelius Prize (for 2020) in the humanities and social sciences, for her support. He also emphasised the importance of scientific cooperation and thanked his doctoral students and colleagues from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, with which he is also associated: ‘In general, what I have tried to do and what I try to do all the time is to find some theoretical platforms on which to discuss this relationship between individual autonomy and the demands of social cultural and social educational systems. The fact that I succeed from time to time in describing this in a reasonably synthetic way is certainly due to my colleagues, to whom I have been very fortunate in life.’

Prof. Tomasz Szkudlarek's biography:

Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Szkudlarek, a graduate of UG and then an academic teacher, pedagogue at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Gdańsk. He is currently researching the relationship between pedagogical and political discourses, and his main works in this area are the books On the Politics of Educational Theory published by Routledge in 2017 and the co-authored work Education and the Political: New Theoretical Articulations published by Sense Publishers in 2013. He has led several collaborative research projects, the work of one of which resulted in the co-authored book The Discursive Construction of the Subject: A contribution to the reconstruction of cultural pedagogy (Gdańsk 2012). He collaborates with the Academy of Fine Arts and many foreign universities. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Linkoping, Sweden.

He is the author of a recently published book entitled Anima', which is his literary debut.

An exhibition of paintings and drawings by prof. Tomasz Szkudlarek is on show at the University of Gdańsk Museum until 10 February.