This prestigious international award, sponsored by Pfizer Ltd, is designed to reward scientists, based in Africa, at the outset of their career and to promote science capacity building in the developing world. The award will recognise a research scientist, at an early stage of their research career, who is making an innovative contribution to the biological sciences, including basic medical science, which contributes significantly to capacity building in Africa.
£60,000 will be awarded as a grant in order for the recipient to carry out a research project that is linked to an African centre of scientific excellence, which would normally be a University, or equivalent research centre. The grant is intended to cover the costs of the research project except from the awardees own salary (see terms and conditions for further information about the award). A further £5,000 will be given as a prize to the recipient.
Nominations for the 2010 Royal Society Pfizer Award are now closed.
2009 Winner
The Royal Society Pfizer Award for 2009 was awarded to Dr Linda-Gail Bekker, from the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in South Africa for her outstanding research into tuberculosis and HIV co-infections in Africa, contributing to several innovative and successful health delivery platforms and capacity building opportunities.
Click here to find out more about previous winners.
Selection
The nominations for the Royal Society Pfizer Award will be assessed by the Royal Society Biological Sciences Medals and Awards Committee, made up of Fellows of the Royal Society. This Committee recommends to Council the recipient of the Award. Click here for more information about the Committee.
Selection will be based on past achievement in the field, rather than the proposed programme of activities albeit that where two candidates are deemed to be equal the strength of their proposed research programme will be used to determine the winner.
Making a nomination
The online nomination process for the Award comprises two parts: a nomination by a proposer summarising the candidate's scientific record, suitability for the award and impact on Africa (Form A); and a statement by the candidate outlining how they intend to spend the research grant (Form B). Nominations must also include a copy of the candidate's CV, a list of their 20 most important publications and their citation record, along with the database they used and the search criteria. Terms and conditions of the award can be found here.
The nomination process for the 2010 Royal Society Pfizer Award is now closed. The closing date was 25 January 2010.
Nominations can be made using Form A and Form B shown below. To recieve a copy of these forms by e-mail please write to awards with 'Pfizer Nomination Forms' in the subject line.