About Atlas

Atlas Award 2025

Advancing research and researchers that deliver sustainable, resilient, and innovative solutions for peace, justice, and good health and wellbeing.

Research for a better world

Science impacts everyone's world. With over 4,000 journals publishing articles from across science, technology and health, our mission is to amplify the reach of research that can impact people’s lives around the world. The Atlas Award showcases research that could significantly impact people’s lives around the world or has already done so. We hope that bringing wider attention to this research will help ensure its successful implementation.

The Atlas Award winner is selected through a two-stage process. Nominated papers are identified and shortlisted based on expert recommendations and citation metrics, assessed for the novelty of the research and its potential impact on society. The top 10 selected articles are then reviewed by Advisory Board members, who choose the winner.

We aim to showcase some of the articles that can make a real difference and hope you’ll find this to be a valuable resource.

2025 winning article

The flag and the stick: Aid suspensions, human rights, and the problem of the complicit public opens in new tab/window World Development

View all nominationed articles

Protecting human rights requires more than aid suspension – here’s why

The Atlas Award winning article for 2025, challenges the notion that suspending foreign aid isn't an effective response to human rights violations. Drawing on global case studies, it argues for deeper, more strategic engagement to protect human dignity and drive lasting change.

Read the article

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