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Both women have been awarded Catalonia’s most prestigious prize for “their determination and courage in the defence of human rights”. Malala Yousafzai is the young activist in Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban for defending the right to education, particularly for female students. Gro Harlem Brundtland coined the term “sustainable development”, advocated for fighting climate change, was the Director of the World Health Organisation and had the luck to escape from Utoya’s deadly attack. Each year, the ‘Premi Internacional Catalunya’ is given to individuals who have greatly contributed to humankind’s development. Brazil’s former President Lula da Silva, received the prize last year. Other awardees include: Haruki Murakami, Jimmy Carter, Aung San Suu Kyi, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Doris Lessing, Jacques Delors, Amartya Sen and Karl Popper.

The Barcelona-raised sociologist Manuel Castells has received the 2012 Holberg International Memorial Prize in Bergen, Norway. This award is considered to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in the field of sociology. The jury considered his book ‘Communication Power’ to be “essential for a new understanding of politics”. Castells holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair at the University of Southern California, he is Research Professor at Catalonia’s distance-learning university (UOC) and Professor Emeritus at the University of California (Berkeley).