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Template - Future Insight Prize

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

Illustration-Pandemic-early-alert-system

2023 Future Insight Prize

The award ceremony on the 2023 dream product „pandemic early alert system“ takes place on 11 July 2023 starting at 2 pm CEST.

Join the live stream

2023 Future Insight Prize

Awarded to Khalid Salaita

The award ceremony on the 2023 dream product „pandemic early alert system“ took place on 11 July 2023.

Watch the video

REALIZING THE DREAMS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

At the occasion of our 350th anniversary, Merck is sponsoring 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 the next 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.

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

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)

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@merckgroup.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

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.

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.

Future Insight prize winner 2023

"The Future Insight prize supports basic science that has a bold vision and great impact in the future and I can’t thank Merck enough for that support." Khalid Salaita, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia

Watch the video

Recent prize winners

Year	Name	University	Award	Story
2023	Khalid Salaita	Emory University, Georgia	Pandemic early alert	Pandemic early alert
2022	Tobias J. Erb	Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology	CO₂ to fuel conversion	CO2 conversion
2021	Ting Lu	University of Illinois	Equally shared: Food generator	Food generation
2021	Steve Techtmann	Michigan Technological University	Equally shared: Food generator	Food generation
2020	Stephan Sieber	Technical University Munich	Multi-drug resistance breaker	Multi-drug resistance
2019	James Earl Crowe, Jr.	Vanderbilt University Medical Center	Equally shared: Pandemic protector	Pandemic protection
2019	Pardis Sabeti	The Broad Institute, Inc.	Equally shared: Pandemic protector	Pandemic protection

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.

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.

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.

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.

Media Library

The 2024 Future Insight^TM prize is handed over at the Curious2024 - Future Insight^TM conference. This is one of the world’s most renowned gatherings on the future of science & technology. Browse past award lectures in the media library.

Curious2024 conference media library

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

Ulrich Betz

Vice President Innovation, Merck

Future Insight Prize Inventor and Manager

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 Merck’s 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	Lamia Messari-Becker	Universität Siegen
Alessandro Donato	European Space Agency	Linda Hill	Harvard Business School
Angela Belcher	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Lolke Sijtsma	University of Wageningen
Aysa Rolls	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology	Máire Connolly	National University of Ireland Galway
Anthony Atala	Wake Forest School of Medicine	Manfred Weck	RWTH Aachen
Belén Garijo	Merck	Martin Jonikas	Princeton University
Benjamin List	Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research	Mary Voytek	NASA
Brett Kagan	Cortical labs	Matt Rosseinsky	University of Liverpool
Brian K Kobilka	Stanford University	Michael Jacobs	Royal Free London NH
Burkhard Becher	University of Zurich	Michael Obersteiner	Oxford University
Camille Delebecque	Afineur	Moritz Helmstädter	MPI for Brain Research
Caroline Dive	Cancer Research UK	Murray S. Campbell	IBM
Catherine Havasi	MIT Media Lab	Nadia Tornieporth	Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
Chihaya Adachi	Kyushu University	Nancy Cox	Vanderbilt University
Christina Smolke	Stanford University	Naom Slonim	IBM
Christopher Milne	Tufts	Neil Hausmann	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Clifford P. Kubiak	UC San Diego	Nicholas Donofrio	IBM
Daniel Bausch	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	Omar Yaghi	UC Berkeley
Daniel Zajfman	Weizmann Institute of Science	Orla Smith	Science / AAAS
David Bloom	Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health	Otmar Wiestler	Helmholtz Association
David Solit	Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	Pardis Sabeti	Broad Institute
Dean Radin	California Institute of Integral Studies	Peidong Yang	UC Berkeley
Deborah O‘Neil	Novabiotics	Peter Hotez	Baylor College of Medicine
Don Cleveland	UC San Diego	Peter Piot	The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Esther Ngumbi	University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaig	Rafi Ahmed	Emory University
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker	Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich	Robert Huber	Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry
George Church	Harvard Universit	Ron Fouchier	Erasmus University
George P. Smith	Catholic University of America	Ross Maclean	Precision Value & Health
Gerald Haug	Leopoldina, German National Academy of Sciences	Rudi Balling	University of Luxembourg
Gordon J. Freedman	Dana-Farber Cancer Insistute	Scott Spangler	IBM
Hans-Dieter Klenk	Institute of Virology, Marburg	Segenet Kelemu	ICIPE, Kenya
Hans-Joachim Zeiler	Creative Therapeutics	Shinichi Akaike	NISTEP, Japan
Harald Seifert	University of Cologne	Shyam Sankar	Palantir Technologies
Helmut Schwarz	TU Berlin	Stephan Sieber	Technical University Munich
Isha Datar	New Harvest	Stephen Techtmann	Michigan Technological University
Jake Yeston	AAAS / Science	Steve Jackson	University of Cambridge
Joe Quirk	The Seasteading Institute	Stewart Cole	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Johann-Dietrich Wörner	National Academy of Science and Engineering, acatech	Subhanu Saxena	New Rhein Foundation
James E. Crowe	Vanderbilt Medical Center	Thomas Südhof	Stanford University
Jaquelyn Francis	The Global Warming Mitigation Project	Tim Appenzeller	Science / AAAS
Jarryd Pla	University of New South Wales	Ting Lu	University of Illinois
Jef Boeke	NYU Langone Health	Tobias Erb	MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology
Jean-Marie Lehn	College de France	Toby Bloom	New York Genome Center
Jeremy Nicholson	Murdoch University	Tom Knight	Ginkgo Bioworks
Joachim Frank	Columbia University	Ulrich Betz	Merck
Joao Monteiro	Nature Medicine	Ulrich Hartl	MPI of Biochemistry
John Gyapong	University of Health & Allied Sciences	Ulrich Wiesner	Cornell University
Jörg Tremmel	Foundation for the rights of future generations	Valorie Aquino	March for Science
Kara Bren	University of Rochester	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.

Downloads


Terms & Conditions	Click here
Agenda of the awards ceremony (2023)	Click here

FAQs

- Has the recipient’s work provided important breakthroughs to enable a realization of the dream product?
- Is the recipient’s work of utmost scientific quality recognized by top peer review journals?
- Will the recipient be able to make good use of the prize money to advance research in this area?
The Future Insight™prize will be given out to an individual whose work has contributed to laying the scientific and technological basis for solving some of humanities greatest problems in the areas of health, energy, and nutrition. Their work will help to realize the vision of a dream product of importance for the survival of humanity in the future. In 2019, the Future Insight™ prize is given out in the area of health (dream product pandemic protector), in 2020 in the area of health (dream product multi drug resistance breaker), in 2021 in the area of nutrition (dream product food generator), in 2022 in the area of energy (dream product CO₂ to fuel converter), and in 2023 and 2024 in the area of health (dream product pandemic early alert system and fighting pandemics with AI).
The Future Insight™ prize will continue to be given out supporting research laying important foundations for the realization of the published dream products - pandemic protector, multi-drug resistance breaker, food generator, CO₂ to fuel converter, pandemic early alert system, fighting pandemics with AI - until they have been realized. In addition, new visionary dream products might be announced.

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Template - Future Insight Prize

2023 Future Insight Prize

Awarded to Khalid Salaita

REALIZING THE DREAMS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

We can make it happen

Selection Process

Fighting pandemics with AI

Pandemic Preparedness

Future Insight prize winner 2023

Recent prize winners

Co2 conversion

Food Generation

Multi-Drug Resistance

Pandemic Protection

Media Library

Testimonials

Future Insight prize jury

Downloads

FAQs