The Prie Prie Institute for Applied Nonsense Research was established in 2019 in The Hague, following a heated disagreement at a dinner party about whether socks disappear in the dryer due to quantum tunneling or social pressures.
Finding no existing academic institution willing to take this question seriously, our founders pooled €47.50 in leftover holiday money and a broken espresso machine to establish what would become the Netherlands' premier (and only) institute for marginally significant research.
Today, the Institute operates from a converted garden shed behind a Vietnamese restaurant in the Schilderswijk neighborhood. We maintain a strict open-door policy, although the door is somewhat stuck and requires shoulder-ramming to open.
Our Mission
We investigate the questions that other research institutions find too trivial, too confusing, or too embarrassing to pursue. Our threshold for what constitutes a "valid research question" is legendarily low, which we consider a feature rather than a flaw.
We believe that the universe is fundamentally absurd, and that the appropriate scholarly response to absurdity is meticulous, well-documented further absurdity.