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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With the Future Insight™ prize, we aim to empower researchers tackling some of humanity’s most pressing global challenges in health, nutrition and energy.
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)
What do you think should be the focus of the Future Insight™ prize topic in the years to come? Send in your proposals at futureinsightprize@emdgroup.com.
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
2022 Future Insight prize
The Future InsightTM prize will be given out in 2022 for the topic CO2 conversion at the Curious2022 - Future InsightTM conference. Join us for this 3 day event and look into the future of science. Online or in Darmstadt, Germany 12th - 14 July 2022.
2022: Co2 conversion
Recent prize winners
| Year | Name | University | Award area | Story |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Ting Lu | University of Illinois | Equally shared: Food generation | Food generation |
| 2021 | Steve Techtmann | Michigan Technological University | Equally shared: Food generation | Food generation |
| 2020 | Stephan Sieber | Technical University Munich | Multi-drug resistance | Multi-drug resistance |
| 2019 | James Earl Crowe, Jr. | Vanderbilt University Medical Center | Equally shared: Pandemic protection | Pandemic protection |
| 2019 | Pardis Sabeti | The Broad Institute, Inc. | Equally shared: Pandemic protection | Pandemic protection |
2021: Food Generation
Future Insight prize 2021 award ceremony
The 2021 award ceremony took place during the Future InsightTM days. The event featured the Future InsightTM prize for outstanding research towards the dream product "Food Generation", the Spinoff Prize and the Johann Anton Merck Award.
Prof. Ting Lu’s research focuses on microbial synthetic biology, which harnesses engineered gene circuits for programing microbial cell functionality. On receiving the prize, he tells us “As bioengineers, we are called to use science and technology in service of humanity by improving human health and nutrition. While we have generated exciting results, there is still a long way to go from concept demonstration to real-world applications. With the prize, we can pursue high-risk, high-return ideas that can be potentially transformative.”
Prof. Steve Techtmann’s research is in the field of environmental microbiology. “Inside microbes are gene circuits that behave as machinery for manufacturing. A lot of what we are trying to do is see how life exists and what we can learn from life in the environment and use that to solve problems like environmental contamination or food shortages. To be able to pursue interesting angles of research that can have major advances is something this award will allow us to do. I think that’s really exciting.”
2019: Pandemic Protection
2020: Multi-Drug Resistance
The Future Insight Prize builds a network of innovators to enable the dreams for a better tomorrow.
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
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 Zajfman | Weizmann Institute of Science | Nancy Cox | Vanderbilt University | |
| David Bloom | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health | Neil Hausmann | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | |
| David Solit | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Nicholas Donofrio | IBM | |
| Dean Radin | California Institute of Integral Studies | Orla Smith | Science / AAAS | |
| Deborah O‘Neil | Novabiotics | Otmar Wiestler | Helmholtz Association | |
| Don Cleveland | UC San Diego | Pardis Sabeti | Broad Institute | |
| Esther Ngumbi | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | Peidong Yang | UC Berkeley | |
| Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker | Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich | Peter Hotez | Baylor College of Medicine | |
| George Church | Harvard University | Peter Piot | The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | |
| George P. Smith | Catholic University of America | Rafi Ahmed | Emory University | |
| Gerald Haug | Leopoldina, German National Academy of Sciences | Robert Huber | Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry | |
| Gordon J. Freedman | Dana-Farber Cancer Insistute | Ron Fouchier | Erasmus University | |
| Hans-Dieter Klenk | Institute of Virology, Marburg | Ross Maclean | Precision Value & Health | |
| Hans-Joachim Zeiler | Creative Therapeutics | Rudi Balling | University of Luxembourg | |
| Harald Seifert | University of Cologne | Rudolf Aebersold | ETH Zürich | |
| Helmut Schwarz | TU Berlin | Scott Spangler | IBM | |
| Isha Datar | New Harvest | Segenet Kelemu | ICIPE, Kenya | |
| Jake Yeston | AAAS / Science | Shinichi Akaike | NISTEP, Japan | |
| Johann-Dietrich Wörner | National Academy of Science and Engineering, acatech | Shyam Sankar | Palantir Technologies | |
| James E. Crowe | Vanderbilt Medical Center | Stephan Sieber | Technical University Munich | |
| James Le Duc | University of Texas Medical Branch | Stephen Techtmann | Michigan Technological University | |
| Jaquelyn Francis | The Global Warming Mitigation Project | Stewart Cole | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | |
| Jef Boeke | NYU Langone Health | Subhanu Saxena | New Rhein Foundation | |
| Jean-Marie Lehn | College de France | Thomas Südhof | Stanford University | |
| Jeremy Nicholson | Murdoch University | Tim Appenzeller | Science / AAAS | |
| Joachim Frank | Columbia University | Ting Lu | University of Illinois | |
| Joao Monteiro | Nature Medicine | Toby Bloom | New York Genome Center | |
| John Gyapong | University of Health & Allied Sciences | Tom Knight | Ginkgo Bioworks | |
| Kara Bren | University of Rochester | Ulrich Betz | Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany | |
| Katja Becker | German research association DFG | Ulrich Wiesner | Cornell University | |
| Kenneth Drazan | Arsenal Bioscience | Valorie Aquino | March for Science | |
| Lamia Messari-Becker | Universität Siegen | 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.
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