The Heritage Time Capsule (HTC) project opened a Discoverer Report Competition in 2025. The purpose of a discoverer report is to shine a spotlight on a chosen HTC contribution and bring the HTC contributions to the attention of readers. All the entries are available at the HTC website: https://htc.issmge.org/discovery#discoverer_contributions
The ISSMGE Board kindly approved a cash pool for prizes. The Discoverer Reports hosted on the HTC website for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025 were evaluated as part of the competition, noting that HTC team members’ discoverer report submissions were ruled ineligible for consideration for the competition
Entries were evaluated on value, originality and presentation by a dedicated sub-committee including Pedro Sêco e Pinto, Charles MacRobert and Hugo Acosta-Martínez. The results were unanimously agreed and are summarised below. Where multiple awards are presented, the list was prepared in alphabetical order of the corresponding member society. A summary of the cases covered by each Discoverer Report is also included.
Awardees were acknowledged during the HTC plenary session at the 21st ICSMGE recently held in Vienna. A video of the session is available at the HTC website (https://htc.issmge.org/discovery#htc_lectures).
First Prize Award (£1,000):
- Monica Löfman (Finland): Macedonian Association for Geotechnics, TC101 Laboratory Testing
Second Prize Award (£500 each submission):
- Nicolás Tasso (Argentina): Generations in the Ground - Geotechnical Legacy in (some) Argentine Dams
- Rhiannon Robinson (New Zealand): TC203 Earthquake
Third Prize Award (£200 each submission):
- Asal Bidarmaghz (Australia): Austrian Geotechnical Society, French Committee for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnics, TC103 on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics
- María José Camacho Cordero (Costa Rica): TC306 Geo-education
- Choo Siung Chung (Malaysia): Le Comité Français de Mécanique des Sols et de Géotechnique, Hellenic Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, The Canadian Geotechnical Society
- Sonia H. M. Marques (Portugal): Colombian Geotechnical Society, Canadian Geotechnical Society, TC304 Risk
- Judy Eid (United Kingdom): TC 101 – Laboratory Testing
- Kyle Parr and Debayan Ghosh (USA): TC 307 Sustainability
The HTC Design Team warmly congratulates all awardees for their outstanding contributions and enthusiasm. Their work reflects the spirit of collaboration, learning, and knowledge sharing within the geotechnical community.
ISSMGE members are encouraged to explore these contributions and discover more through the Virtual Time Capsule (https://htc.issmge.org/virtual-time-capsule).
The HTC Design Team also acknowledges the support from the ISSMGE Secretariat for payment of the cash prizes, which has been completed at time of publication of this news announcement.