Announcing the Honorees of the Inaugural Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom
Nine outstanding scientists from six U.K. academic institutions receive a total of $480,000.
The New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation announced the first Honorees of the Blavatnik Awards in the United Kingdom.
Three Laureates, in the categories of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemistry, will each receive an unrestricted prize of $100,000. In addition, two Finalists in each category will each receive an unrestricted prize of $30,000. To date, the Blavatnik Awards in the U.K. are the largest unrestricted cash awards available exclusively to young scientists.
The Blavatnik Awards, administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, were established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in 2007 to honor and support exceptional early-career scientists and engineers under the age of 42 across the United States. In 2017, the Awards were launched in the U.K. and Israel, and the first cohort of international Blavatnik Award recipients was recognized. To date, the Blavatnik Awards have conferred prizes totaling U.S. $5 million, honoring 220 outstanding young scientists and engineers.
In this inaugural year of the Blavatnik Awards in the U.K., 124 nominations were received from 67 academic and research institutions across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. A distinguished jury of leading senior scientists and engineers selected the Laureates and Finalists. The 2018 Laureates are:
- Life Sciences: M. Madan Babu, Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
- Chemistry: Andrew L. Goodwin, University of Oxford.
- Physical Sciences & Engineering: Henry Snaith, University of Oxford.
The Finalists for the 2018 Blavatnik Awards in the U.K. are:
Life Sciences
- Timothy Behrens, University of Oxford; honorary Principal Investigator, University College London (UCL).
- John Briggs, Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Chemistry
- Robert Hilton, Durham University.
- Philipp Kukura, University of Oxford.
Physical Sciences & Engineering
- Claudia de Rham, Imperial College London.
- Andrew Levan, University of Warwick.
These inaugural Blavatnik Awards Laureates and Finalists in the U.K. will be honored at a gala dinner and ceremony at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on March 7, 2018. In addition, the Award recipients will be invited to attend the annual Blavatnik Science Symposium at the New York Academy of Sciences this summer, which is an opportunity for former and current Blavatnik Awardees to exchange ideas and build cross-disciplinary research collaborations.
The Blavatnik U.K. honorees will become members of the Blavatnik Science Scholars community, currently comprising over 220 Blavatnik Award honorees from the decade-old U.S. program and three inaugural 2018 Laureates from Israel. Honorees will also receive Membership to The New York Academy of Sciences.
