The Centre for International Security has been awarding the Wolfgang Ischinger Award to the best master's thesis on international security in an academic year. The first award was given out in 2021.
Candidates are selected from among the theses submitted to one of our Centre core faculty members (Prof. Tobias Bunde, Prof. Mauro Gilli, Prof. Anita Gohdes, Prof. Marina Henke, and Prof. Julian Wucherpfennig), all of which are automatically eligible. Candidates are nominated by faculty and a rigorous selection process decides the winner.
Wolfgang Ischinger Award 2025
The 2025 Wolfgang Ischinger Award was presented to Alisa Gropper for her master’s thesis titled “Germany’s Energy Supply Security after the Russian Invasion: A Process Tracing Analysis of Germany’s Gas Supply Diversification”. Johann Paetzold and Jordi Razum received honourable mentions.
The 2024 Wolfgang Ischinger Award was shared by Nils Hein and Taro Nishikawa. Nils’ master’s thesis was titled “Global Food Prices and Civil Unrest: New Evidence from Africa, 2005–2022” and Taro’s master’s thesis explored “Bilateral Foreign Aid in the Context of Alliance Politics: Altruistic Endeavour or an Alternative Tool for Burden-Sharing?”.
The 2023 Wolfgang Ischinger Award was shared by Richard Beil and Laura Pros Segura. Richard's thesis was titled "A Quantitative Investigation on Ethnic Discrimination and Support for Insurgency?”. Laura's thesis was titled "Digital Repression and Secessionist Reversals: Explaining the Effects of the Revelation of the Pegasus Attacks on the De-escalation of the Catalan Secessionist Movement”.
The 2022 Wolfgang Ischinger Award was won by Jessica Trollip for her thesis, “Explaining variation in the incidence of sexual exploitation and abuse between United Nations peacekeeping missions”.
The winner of the 2021 Wolfgang Ischinger Award was Michelangelo Freyrie for his thesis, "Franco-German leadership and the making of sanctions against Russia".
