Karen Hardy

Karen Hardy is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. She was awarded a €2.5m European Research Council (ERC) grant in 2021 for a project entitled 'Powerful Plants: The Power of Plants as Food, Medicine and Raw Materials before Agriculture'. Due to political wranglings that remain unresolved as a result of Brexit, she could not accept this award and be based in the UK. In its place she was awarded an equivalent sum from the URKI Horizon Guarantee Europe Fund. She credits the development of her research to the 14 years she spent as an ICREA Research professor based in Barcelona (2008-2022). This institution’s non-intrusive approach allows researchers time to think, without demanding the need for immediate results. She credits her insights to the many people she has met and worked with who are from traditional (non Western) economies, while caring for her five children as a single Mum for 20 years, brought life’s essentials sharply into focus.