Pedro Palma was awarded the Idea Puzzle Prize 2022 with his research design entitled ‘Exploring energy poverty measurement across the spatial and temporal scales: Insights for multilevel policy-making", under the supervision of João Pedro Gouveia.

The Idea Puzzle software is a decision-making tool that helps PhD candidates improve the coherence of a research proposal, article, or thesis in the light of Philosophy of Science (Morais & Brailsford, 2019). It also helps review the strengths and weaknesses of a research project in any field of knowledge (Parente & Ferro, 2016). To date, the Idea Puzzle software has helped design more than 6700 research projects worldwide.

The Idea Puzzle software poses 21 questions, helps answer them, and allows the self-evaluation of each answer in terms of decision-making status. The help function of the Idea Puzzle software includes examples of research designs in different fields of knowledge that have won the Idea Puzzle Prize as well as definitions, introductions, tips, and bibliography. The output of the Idea Puzzle software is a research design with 21 answers, an overall score, and a coloured jigsaw puzzle of progress.