The Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation is today launching a €100,000 Academic Grand Prize to support European on the theme of artificial intelligence and responsible and sustainable technologies.
- The Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation is today launching a €100,000 Academic Grand Prize to support European on the theme of artificial intelligence and responsible and sustainable technologies
- The prize supports research examining the relationship between AI and the environment, natural resources or biodiversity.
- Applications are open from today until 20 February, 2026 for researchers based in European laboratories.
Paris, 22 December 2025 - The Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation today announces the launch of a €100,000 Academic Grand Prize to support and recognise academic research into responsible and sustainable artificial intelligence serving the general interest. The prize is open to researchers from European universities, institutes and non-profit research laboratories.
The rapid acceleration artificial intelligence – particularly generative AI – is continuing without any stabilised scientific knowledge or established consensus on its environmental and systemic impacts. We also lack shared, robust methods on how to measure these impacts. While research into more 'sober' AI solutions, based for example on less energy-intensive data storage methods, is making progress, it needs support. Against a backdrop of increasing pressure on scientific research, the Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation has chosen to support research capable of providing robust data, tools and analytical frameworks.
Supporting research to inform and guide AI
Through this Grand Prize, Sopra Steria is underlining its conviction that a technology claiming to transform society cannot develop without a scientific compass to guide environmental awareness. The Prize aims to support research that improves our ability to measure, assess and act on the environmental impacts – both positive and negative – of artificial intelligence and disruptive digital technologies.
Grand Prize applicants will be asked to position their research within one or more of the following areas:
- Measurement: developing methods, indicators and data to qualify and quantify the environmental impact of AI;
- Action: designing more ‘sober’ and resource-efficient techniques and approaches, or deploying AI to support the low-carbon transition and climate adaptation;
- Assessment: analysing net benefits, positive contributions and avoided emissions associated with the use of AI.
The Grand Prize is just part of the work carried out by the Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation, an organisation under the aegis of the Institut de France, with a shared ambition: to support the needs in education and social inclusion linked to the growing role of digital technologies, while advancing scientific knowledge in the service of the general interest and respect for the environment.
Xavier Darcos, Chancellor of the Institut de France and President of the Sopra Steria-Institut de France Foundation, commented: "The environmental and societal challenges posed by artificial intelligence call for responses based on scientific rigour. With this Grand Prize, the Institut de France is reaffirming its commitment to independent, rigorous research, which is vital for informing public debate and future decisions."
Eric Pasquier, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of Strategy at Sopra Steria, said: "Innovation in artificial intelligence must reconcile technological ambition with social and environmental responsibility. Through this Grand Prize, Sopra Steria underlines its commitment to supporting those who advance scientific knowledge. Their work will help provide structure and meaning to artificial intelligence, designed to inform decision-making, empower people, and place technology at the service of sustainable progress. By encouraging them, we are meeting our responsibility as an independent European company and investing in a fundamental requirement."
Axelle Lemaire, Board Member of the Sopra Steria–Institut de France Foundation and Executive Director of Sustainable Performance at Sopra Steria, said: "We have allowed AI to develop faster than our ability to understand its environmental and societal impacts. This unbalance is unsustainable, particularly at a time when scientific research is under pressure, and sometimes contested and exploited. Supporting science means creating the conditions for informed collective decision-making. This Grand Prize intentionally aims to put facts, methods and rigour back at the heart of the AI debate. Without measurement, transparency and science, there can be no responsible AI.”
How to apply. Applications are open to research teams based in Europe and working within non-profit organisations. Submissions must be made by midnight 20 February, 2026 via the dedicated application portal.
The winning project will be selected by a jury of academics and recognised experts in the field of artificial intelligence and environmental sciences, and announced in June 2026 at the Institut de France annual awards ceremony.