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.
Garijo Belen Cut Out 600 600

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

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 protector (2019)
  • Health - Multi drug resistance breaker (2020)
  • Nutrition - Food generator (2021)
  • Energy - CO2 to fuel convertor (2022)
  • Health - Pandemic early alert system (2023)
  • Health - Fighting pandemics with AI (2024)
  • Health - Body organ regenerator (2025)
  • Health - Smart health sensor (2026)

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 at the Curious - Future Insight Conference or a dedicated hand-over event.

Future Insight prize winner 2025

The Future Insight™ prize 2025 was awarded to Magdalena Götz, Helmholtz Centre Munich, for her work in reprogramming glial cells for neuronal regeneration. Her team demonstrated that glial cells, traditionally seen as support cells, can act as neural stem cells and be reprogrammed into neurons. This discovery paves the way for regenerative therapies targeting neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Smart Health Sensor Smart Health Sensor
2026 Prize Topic

Smart Health Sensor

The dream product is a sensor that non-invasively and permanently scans human health and automatically detects any emerging health problem before it manifests itself, allowing for immediate intervention.

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method to re-grow all damaged organs for regenerative medicine method to re-grow all damaged organs for regenerative medicine
2025 Prize topic

Body Organ Regenerator

The dream product is a method that allows to re-grow all damaged organs for regenerative medicine. 

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2024 Prize topic

Fighting pandemics with AI

The dream product is an AI-driven monitoring and modeling tool that can help detect outbreaks early, quickly process data from multiple sources, and predict future scenarios.  

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2023 Prize topic

Pandemic Preparedness

The dream product is a pandemic early alert system that constantly monitors circulating bacteria and viruses in all areas of the world with an early warning system for newly emerging pandemics. 

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2022 Prize Topic

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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The dream product converts any nonedible biomass into readily edible fully The dream product converts any nonedible biomass into readily edible fully
2021 Prize topic

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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2020 Prize topic

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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2019 Prize topic

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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Recent prize winners

Year Name Research Affiliation Award Award amount Story
2025 Magdalena Götz Helmholtz Centre Munich  Body Organ Regenerator € 250,000  
2024 Lauren Gardner  Johns Hopkins University Fighting pandemics with AI € 500,000   
2023 Khalid Salaita Emory University, Georgia Pandemic early alert € 500,000 Pandemic early alert
2022 Tobias J. Erb Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology CO2 to fuel conversion € 1 Mio CO2 conversion
2021 Ting Lu University of Illinois Equally shared: Food generator € 500,000 Food generation  
2021 Steve Techtmann Michigan Technological University Equally shared: Food generator € 500,000 Food generation  
2020 Stephan Sieber Technical University Munich Multi-drug resistance breaker € 1 Mio Multi-drug resistance
2019 James Earl Crowe, Jr. Vanderbilt University Medical Center Equally shared: Pandemic protector € 500,000 Pandemic protection  
2019 Pardis Sabeti The Broad Institute, Inc. Equally shared: Pandemic protector € 500,000 Pandemic protection  
Curious2024 - Future Insight conference medial library

2025 Award Handover

The 2025 Future InsightTM prize is handed over on July 8th in Darmstadt, Germany.  Browse past award lectures in the media library of the Curious - Future InsightTM conference.

Conference media library
Betz Freigestellt4

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

Ulrich Betz

Senior Vice President Innovation, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Inventor and manager of the Future Insight prize

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   
Ada Jonath Weizmann Institute of Science Khalid Salaita Emory University  
Alessandro Donato Klang-Armonia Lamia Messari-Becker Universität Siegen  
Angela Belcher Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lauren Gardner Johns Hopkins University  
Aysa Rolls Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Linda Hill Harvard Business School  
Belén Garijo Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany Máire Connolly National University of Ireland Galway  
Benjamin List Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research Martin Jonikas Princeton University  
Brett Kagan Cortical labs Mary Voytek NASA  
Brian K Kobilka Stanford University Magdalena Götz Helmholtz Centre Munich  
Burkhard Becher University of Zurich Matt Rosseinsky University of Liverpool  
Camille Delebecque Afineur Michael Jacobs Royal Free London NHS  
Carola Vinuesa Francis Crick Institute Michael Obersteiner University of Oxford  
Caroline Dive Cancer Research UK Mihaela van der Shaar University of Cambridge  
Catherine Havasi  MIT Media Lab Moritz Helmstädter MPI for Brain Research  
Chihaya Adachi Kyushu University Murray S. Campbell IBM  
Christina Smolke Stanford University Nadia Tornieporth Clinical Consultant, Vaccine Development  
Christopher Milne Tufts Nancy Cox Vanderbilt University  
Clifford P. Kubiak UC San Diego Naom Slonim IBM  
Daniel Bausch London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Neil Hausmann Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation  
Daniel Zajfman Weizmann Institute of Science Nicholas Donofrio IBM  
David Bloom Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Orla Smith Science / AAAS  
David Solit Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Otmar Wiestler Helmholtz Association  
Dean Radin California Institute of Integral Studies Pardis Sabeti Broad Institute  
Deborah O‘Neil Novabiotics Peidong Yang UC Berkeley  
Don Cleveland UC San Diego Peter Hotez Baylor College of Medicine  
Dorothee Dormann Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Peter Piot The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine  
Eduard A. Lemke Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Rafi Ahmed  Emory University  
Esther Ngumbi  University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Robert Huber Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry  
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich Ron Fouchier Erasmus University  
George Church Harvard University Ross Maclean Precision Medicine Group  
George P. Smith Catholic University of America Rudi Balling University of Bonn  
Gerald Haug Leopoldina, German National Academy of Sciences Scott Spangler DataScava  
Gordon J. Freedman Dana-Farber Cancer Insistute Segenet Kelemu Mastercard Foundation  
Hans-Joachim Zeiler Creative Therapeutic Shahaf Peleg FBN, Germany  
Harald Seifert University of Cologne Shinichi Akaike NISTEP, Japan  
Hartmut Michel Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry Shyam Sankar Palantir Technologies  
Helmut Schwarz TU Berlin Stephan Sieber Technical University Munich  
Isha Datar New Harvest Stephen Techtmann Michigan Technological University  
Jacquelyn Francis The Global Warming Mitigation Project Steve Jackson University of Cambridge  
Jake Yeston AAAS / Science Stewart Cole École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne  
James E. Crowe Vanderbilt Medical Center Subhanu Saxena New Rhein Foundation  
Jarryd Pla University of New South Wales Tanja Weil Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research  
Jean-Marie Lehn  College de France Theresa Mercer Cranfield University  
Jef Boeke NYU Langone Health 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 Tobias Erb MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology  
Joe Quirk The Seasteading Institute Tom Knight Ginkgo Bioworks  
Johann-Dietrich Wörner National Academy of Science and Engineering, acatech Ulrich Betz Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany  
John Gyapong African Research Universities Alliance Ulrich Hartl MPI of Biochemistry  
Kara Bren University of Rochester Ulrich Wiesner  Cornell University  
Katja Krause Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science Valorie Aquino March for Science  
    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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