The Karl Popper Prize
Karl Popper spent his career arguing that the most important thing a mind can do is subject its own beliefs to the possibility of being wrong.
The prize that bears his name asks students to do the same — on questions that don't have established answers yet. The Karl Popper Prize is an annual competition open to undergraduate and graduate students worldwide. Each year it poses a different provocation at the intersection of technology, governance, ethics, and human rights. The discipline you bring to it is yours to choose.
2026 competition — open this fall
This year's competition invites entrants to respond to a provocation.
"Frameworks for Augmented Reality Deployment in Refugee Settings" is a fictional 2021 internal memorandum from Kamal Singh, an M.Phil. candidate, to Dr. Victoria Caldwell, Dean and Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Refugee Studies. Singh has been asked whether the existing theoretical literature could support a specific intervention: refugee children equipped with augmented reality technology, supported in developing forms of community and self-governance that operate outside existing United Nations structures.
That constraint is deliberate. Ruthless discipline is part of what we are looking for.
His answer is yes — with complications.
The educational case, he argues, is straightforward. The more ambitious claim — that such children, sustained in community over time, could constitute a genuine alternative to nation-state membership — is plausible but not established.
The ethical dimension is harder still:
The proposal cannot proceed under conventional research ethics, and whoever undertakes it accepts a form of moral exposure the existing literature does not support.
Entrants are invited to respond critically, supportively, or somewhere in between.
Responses may take any form: critical essay, philosophical critique, policy analysis, scholarly response, or in-world reply — a memo back from Dr. Caldwell, a third-party review, a dissent from another researcher.
Responses may take any form:
Critical essay, philosophical critique, policy analysis, scholarly response, or in-world reply — a memo back from Dr. Caldwell, a third-party review, a dissent from another researcher.
2026 competition
Prizes
$2,500
First prize
$1,500
Second prize
$1,000
Third prize
Key dates
Stay tuned for competition dates.
2025 — the first competition
"Law's future will be written not just in statutes and courts, but in how we integrate artificial intelligence into the foundations of justice." — Reid Hoffman
The inaugural Karl Popper Prize asked law students to step into 2047 — a near future where AI copilots, climate displacement, and algorithmic truth-verification define the legal landscape — and draft a judicial opinion or brief in a refugee case that tests the limits of human judgment and machine reasoning.
The submissions revealed how the next generation of legal minds are already preparing to govern a world where technology and justice are inseparable. From an exceptionally competitive field, ten finalists emerged. Each of the top five entries received at least one first-place vote from our judges.
2025 winners.
Navya Kolli,
Tulane Law School
Procedural Pluralism
A genuinely novel framework for reconciling faith and verification in AI-driven governance.
Katherine Mansfield & Lenora D’Souza,
Sciences Po
Calibration Theory
A compelling joint opinion exploring how algorithmic interpretation can coexist with democratic deliberation.
Asif Hussain,
Georgetown Law
Judicial Dissent
A masterful exercise in dissent that preserved human reasoning within automated adjudication.
Kevin Mucyo Manzi, Kigali
Independent University (ULK)
Judicial Opinion
Recognized for doctrinal precision and the depth of its constitutional reasoning.
William Dinneen,
Stanford Law school
Party brief
Honored for producing the most realistic and persuasive party brief of the competition.