Principal researcher at NL-Lab, Inger Leemans is nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize 2024 with the research project Historical olfactory heritage: the role of smell in our culture.

The Huibregtsen Prize is intended for recent research projects that combine academic excellence and innovation with significant social impact. The prize was established in 2005 by the board of the De Avond van Wetenschap & Maatschappij foundation. The expert jury nominated six projects, one of which will be awarded the prize, a sculpture ‘the Thinker’ by Wil van der Laan, cash prize of € 25,000, earmarked for research activities, and a workshop, offered by the Lorentz Center in Leiden.

As head of the pan-European, transdisciplinary research project Odeuropa, Inger Leemans has ensured that scent is taken more seriously as part of cultural heritage worldwide. Through the development of digital methods for ‘sensory data mining’, over 2.4 million historical ‘nasal testimonies’ in text and image have already been made accessible for research and analysis. With Odeuropa, Leemans has succeeded in bringing smell to life. Thanks to her team’s work, smells from the past are being reconstructed and we now know what it smelled like on the battlefield of Waterloo, and what the smell was of the powder used to embalm William of Orange.

Working with several museums, the Odeuropa team was able to demonstrate the value of using scent in storytelling. By making history smellable in an innovative way and ‘nose-directing’ both heritage institutions and the general public, Inger Leemans has, in the eyes of the jury, added a particularly original dimension to historical research.

The winner will be announced on October 7^th 2024 by jury president Marileen Dogterom (president KNAW) during the Evening of Science & Society in the Pieterskerk, Leiden.