Lagrange Prize – CRT Foundation Edition 2025 was awarded to Iyad Rahwan
International award recognizing excellence in complex systems and data science
Iyad Rahwan, Director of the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, has been awarded the Lagrange Prize – CRT Foundation Edition 2025. The prize is considered the highest international recognition for research in the field of complex systems and data science. It was established and is funded by the Fondazione CRT, in collaboration with the ISI Foundation in Turin.
Rahwan receives the award for his research on the interaction between humans and artificial intelligence (AI). His work explores how AI systems operate not only on a technical level but are also deeply embedded in social structures—reflecting and influencing human values, biases, and moral decisions. Through this research, Rahwan provides fundamental insights into the so-called coevolution of humans and machines. His approach advocates for an interdisciplinary perspective that brings together insights from computer science, the social sciences, and economics to better understand the complex interplay between human behavior and machine learning.
“Many of the past winners are personal academic heroes of mine, who inspired me to join the field of Computational Social Science over 15 years ago. It is, therefore, a great honor and a privilege for me to be awarded the Lagrange Prize alongside these amazing scientists. I also feel strongly that I am receiving this prize not only on my own, but also on behalf of all my amazing former and current students and other lab members. Doing interdisciplinary work requires a leap of faith by people from different disciplines to work together on hard questions, and I feel fortunate to help catalyze such teamwork”, says award recipient Iyad Rahwan.
Alessandro Vespignani, President of the ISI Foundation, recognizes Rahwan’s contribution:
“For Professor Rahwan, machines with AI are social organisms. Knowing how they are built is not enough, we need to study them through their interactions and the effects they create on the real world. The prestigious Premio Lagrange rewarding his work is testimony of the importance today of considering technology not just as a set of data and algorithms but rather a complex system that shapes our contemporary way of life”.
Since 2008, the Fondazione CRT and the ISI Foundation have honored leading scientists with the Lagrange Prize for their interdisciplinary contributions to understanding complex systems—among them Giorgio Parisi, Albert-László Barabási, Lada Adamic, Duncan J. Watts, Mark Newman, Danielle S. Bassett, and Iain D. Couzin.
