Future Insight Prize

Stimulating scientific and technological progress in the areas of health, nutrition, and energy.

REALIZING THE DREAMS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

At the occasion of our 350th anniversary, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany launched the Future Insight™ prize to stimulate innovative solutions to solve some of humanities greatest problems and to realize the dreams for a better tomorrow in the areas of health, nutrition and energy. The Future Insight™ prize will put the vision for ambitious dream products of global importance for humankind into the world and will trigger curiosity and creativity worldwide on how to make this vision a reality. We intend to give out up to EUR 1,000,000 annually for 35 years to incentivize people whose work has enabled significant progress towards making this vision a reality via discovering new ground-breaking science or via development of enabling technologies.

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Creating the vision for ambitious dream products of global importance for humankind.

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With the Future Insight™ prize, we aim to empower researchers tackling some of humanity’s most pressing global challenges in health, nutrition and energy.

Dr. Belén Garijo

Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

We can make it happen

The Future Insight prize puts the vision for ambitious dream products of global importance for humankind into the world and triggers curiosity and creativity on how to make these visions a reality.

The prize will be awarded annually from 2019 onwards to honor outstanding achievements in science & technology towards a ground‐breaking innovation important for the future of humanity in the areas:

  • Health - Pandemic Protection (2019)
  • Health - Multi Drug Resistance (2020)
  • Nutrition - Food Generator (2021)
  • Energy - CO2 Conversion (2022)

Selection Process

  • A jury comprising experts from all over the world will identify suitable candidates for the Future Insight prize
  • Additionally, proposals for Future Insight Prize candidates can be sent to the jury (no self-nominations)
  • Amongst all of these candidates, the jury will select the top individuals whom are invited to submit a formal application for the prize
  • The jury will evaluate these applications and select the winner of the Future Insight prize
  • The winner will be publicly announced and present their research at the Future Insight conference
The dream product converts any nonedible biomass into readily edible fully The dream product converts any nonedible biomass into readily edible fully

2021: Food Generation

The dream product converts any nonedible biomass into readily edible fully nutritional food within one day without any biohazard.
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Future Insight prize 2021 award ceremony

Sign up for the Future InsightTM days, July 12-14. Featuring the Future InsightTM prize  for outstanding research towards the dream product "Food Generation", the Spinoff Prize and the Johann Anton Merck Award.

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2022: Co2 conversion

The dream product generates a high energy-density fuel from renewable energy, water, and atmospheric carbon dioxide with an overall negative carbon dioxide balance.
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2019: Pandemic Protection

The dream product starts with a clinical sample of a person infected with an unknown pathogen and produces an agent for cure or to prevent infection of others within a clinically relevant timeframe.
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2020: Multi-Drug Resistance

The dream product is a series of novel narrow-spectrum antibacterial agents that are able to cure any bacterial infection without induction of drug resistance, empowered by a one hour diagnostic test.
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Prof. Stephan Sieber’s (b. 1976) research field is bioorganic chemistry. The aim of his work is to develop new drugs for multidrug-resistant bacteria. His research is based on methods which combine synthetic chemistry, functional proteomics, cell biology and mass spectrometry. This approach enables the discovery of new active substances, some of which are currently being optimized for medical application.

2020 Award Ceremony Highlights

Highlight video of the award ceremony that took place virtually on 13th July 2020

View the entire virtual event

Testimonials

“The Future Insight Prize is great because it sets a grand challenge and seeks a solution to societies greatest future needs.” Prof. Dr. Daniel Nocera - Harvard University

"The Future Insight Prize is great because it will foster scientific innovation in areas critical to humanity's future.“ Professor Martin Jonikas - Princeton University

“The Future Insight Prize in Pandemic Protection is great because it is a clear expression of commitment to society and global health.” Dr. Sir Michael Jacobs – Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

"The Future Insight Prize is great because it shows a 350-year old company is thinking about the next 350 years.” Isha Datar – CEO New Harvest

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The Future Insight Prize builds a network of innovators to enable the dreams for a better tomorrow.

Dr. Ulrich Betz

Vice President Innovation, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Future Insight Prize Inventor and Manager

Future Insight Prize Jury


Jury Member 		Affiliation  Jury Member Affiliation   
Angela Belcher Massachusetts Institute of Technology Linda Hill Harvard Business School  
Belen Garijo Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Lolke Sijtsma University of Wageningen  
Benjamin List Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research Máire Connolly National University of Ireland Galway  
Brian K Kobilka Stanford University Manfred Weck RWTH Aachen  
Camille Delebecque Afineur Martin Jonikas Princeton University  
Carolyn "Bo" Aldige Prevent Cancer Foundation Mary Voytek NASA  
Catherine Havasi  MIT Media Lab Matt Rosseinsky University of Liverpool  
Chihaya Adachi Kyushu University Michael Jacobs Royal Free London NHS  
Christina Smolke Stanford University Michael Obersteiner Oxford University  
Christopher Milne Tufts Moritz Helmstädter MPI for Brain Research  
Clifford P. Kubiak UC San Diego Murray S. Campbell IBM  
Daniel Bausch London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Nadia Tornieporth Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations  
Daniel Nocera Harvard University Nancy Cox Vanderbilt University  
Daniel Zajfman Weizmann Institute of Science Neil Hausmann Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  
David Bloom Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Nicholas Donofrio IBM  
David Solit Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Orla Smith Science / AAAS  
Dean Radin California Institute of Integral Studies Otmar Wiestler Helmholtz Association  
Deborah O‘Neil Novabiotics Pardis Sabeti Broad Institute  
Dieter Spath  National Academy of Science and Engineering, acatech Peidong Yang UC Berkeley  
Don Cleveland UC San Diego Peter Hotez Baylor College of Medicine  
Esther Ngumbi  University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Peter Piot The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine  
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich Rafi Ahmed  Emory University  
Ferdi Schüth Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research Robert Huber Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry  
George P. Smith Catholic University of America Ron Fouchier Erasmus University  
Gerald Haug Leopoldina, German National Academy of Sciences Ross Maclean Precision Value & Health  
Gordon J. Freedman Dana-Farber Cancer Insistute Rudi Balling University of Luxembourg  
Hans-Dieter Klenk Institute of Virology, Marburg Rudolf Aebersold ETH Zürich  
Hans-Joachim Zeiler Creative Therapeutics Scott Spangler IBM  
Harald Seifert University of Cologne Segenet Kelemu ICIPE, Kenya  
Helmut Schwarz TU Berlin Shinichi Akaike NISTEP, Japan  
Isha Datar New Harvest Shyam Sankar Palantir Technologies  
Jake Yeston AAAS / Science Stefan Oschmann UCB  
James E. Crowe Vanderbilt Medical Cent Stephan Sieber Technical University Munich  
James Le Duc University of Texas Medical Branch Stewart Cole École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne  
Jef Boeke NYU Langone Health Subhanu Saxena Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  
Jean-Marie Lehn  College de France  Thomas Südhof Stanford University  
Jeremy Nicholson Murdoch University Tim Appenzeller  Science / AAAS  
Joachim Frank Columbia University Toby Bloom New York Genome Center  
Joao Monteiro Nature Medicine Tom Knight Ginkgo Bioworks  
John Gyapong University of Health & Allied Sciences Ulrich Betz Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany  
Kara Bren University of Rochester Ulrich Wiesner Cornell University  
Kenneth Drazan Arsenal Bioscience Valorie Aquino March for Science  
Kurt Wüthrich Scripps Research Institute Yang Shao-Horn Massachusetts Institute of Technology  

All winners of the Future Insight Prize after being awarded are invited to join the jury for subsequent years.

FAQs