Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering

Congratulations to the 2025 winners of the Giovanni Barla Best Paper Award.

Humans travelling to deep space for colonisation will need to manufacture critical resources using local materials — a concept known as in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU). Many scientists and space agencies agree that opportunities for mining off-Earth bodies such as asteroids, comets, the Moon, Mars, and Mars’ moons are rapidly approaching reality, representing the most distant and ambitious sources of wealth ever considered by humankind. Sustainable space resource extraction missions will depend fundamentally on mastering ISRU. However, the uncertainties and challenges are considerable and demand a new wave of technical knowledge and innovation.

Each year, the editors of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering annually present the Giovanni Barla Best Paper Award. This award is named in honor of the late Giovanni Barla, Editor-in-Chief from 2001 to 2019, in recognition of his invaluable contribution to the journal.

The selection panel is composed of the Editor-in-Chief, the Co-Editor and Associate Editors and we are pleased to announce the winners for 2023.