The Irene Hilgers Memorial Prize is dedicated to the memory and scholarly achievements of Irene Hilgers, a German scholar of Uzbekistan. Hilgers died tragically young in 2008, shortly before completing her doctoral dissertation at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Her dissertation was published posthumously as Why Do Uzbeks Have to be Muslims? Exploring Religiosity in the Ferghana Valley. Hilgers was a brilliant and active scholar, who in her short academic career did much to foster collaborative linkages between young scholars in Europe.
The Irene Hilgers Memorial Prize celebrates the achievement of a junior scholar (within five years of their PhD or Candidate of Science degree) from any country who has had an article published in the four issues of Central Asian Survey from the preceding calendar year.
