Adrian Bejan receives the Prigogine Award 2026#
Professor Adrian Bejan MAE, J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor at Duke University, receives the Prigogine Award 2026. Prof. Bejan delivered the lecture entitled "Diversity, Freedom and Design in Nature" at the School of Architecture-PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) University during the 16th Constructal Law Conference (CLC), October 12-15 in Paris.
About the Prigogine Award#
The Prigogine Award was established by the University of Siena and the Wessex Institute of Technology in 2004 to honour the memory of Professor Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry.
Ilya Prigogine was born in Moscow in 1917 and obtained his undergraduate and graduate education in chemistry at the Free University in Brussels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures. The main theme of his scientific work was the role of time in the physical sciences and biology. He contributed significantly to the understanding of irreversible processes, particularly in systems far from equilibrium. The results of his work have had profound consequences for understanding biological and ecological systems.
Prigogine’s ideas established the basis for ecological systems research. The Prigogine Medal to honour his memory is awarded annually to a leading scientist in the field of ecological systems. All recipients have been deeply influenced by the work of Prigogine.
About Adrian Bejan#
Adrian Bejan MAE is J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor at Duke University and member of the Academia Europaea Physics Section since 2013. His creative work is in thermodynamics, design in nature, and the science of form, rhythm, and performance. His contributions to thermodynamics include the method of Entropy Generation Minimization and the Constructal Law of Evolution in Nature: “For a finite size flow system (not infinitesimal) to persist in time (to live) it must evolve with freedom such that it provides easier and greater access to what flows.” For the first time, this law unifies the bio and non-bio realms and accounts for the universal phenomenon of directionality (design change, time arrow, objective, purpose). The Constructal Law cannot be deduced from other existing laws. Among Adrian Bejan’s many honors are the ASME Medal (‘the highest honor that the society can bestow’) and the Benjamin Franklin Medal for “Constructal theory, which predicts natural design and its evolution in engineering, scientific, and social systems.” Two dimensionless groups have been named Bejan Number in different fields, Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer. He was awarded 18 honorary doctorates from universities in 11 countries. He is authored over 30 books and 700 peer-reviewed journal articles with over 100,000 citations. MIT education: SB 1971 (Honors Course), SM 1972 (Honors Course), Ph.D. 1975. Recent books: Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature (2000), Design in Nature (2012), The Physics of Life (2016), Freedom and Evolution (2020), Time and Beauty (2022), Diversity through Freedom (2026).
