The Forum is an excellent opportunity for FENS and its partners to present Awards and Prizes to outstanding scientists and researchers:
FENS awards
The Boehringer-Ingelheim / FENS Research Award is sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim and is announced by FENS. The award is given in recognition of outstanding and innovative scientific work from all areas of neuroscience research. The award is presented during the FENS Forum, where the prize winner gives a special lecture.
The Boehringer Ingelheim / FENS Research Award Lecture will on Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 13:30-14:15.
Sponsored by the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation, this award recognises significant achievements by an individual in translational science, and in particular, those where fundamental and conceptual understanding of the nervous system have been brought to support clinically relevant progress.
The Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award Lecture will on Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 13:30-14:15.
The Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize, awarded by the Hertie Foundation and FENS, recognises the work of outstanding early career scientists in the field of neuroscience. The prize is named after American Nobel Prize winner Prof. Eric Kandel, and is awarded every two years at the Forum with a special lecture.
The winners of the 2023 prize are Mackenzie Mathis and Alexander Mathis from Switzerland. The Eric Kandel Prize Lecture entitled “Measuring and modeling the motor system with machine learning” will take place on Friday, 28 June at 13:30-14:15.
The FENS EJN Award is given in recognition of outstanding scientific work in all areas of neuroscience. The award is a personal prize of £10,000, sponsored by Wiley (publisher of the European Journal of Neuroscience). The prize winner gives a lecture at the FENS Forum.
Prof. Oscar Marín has been awarded with the FENS EJN Award 2024 for his groundbreaking research that has revolutionised our understanding of the cerebral cortex development, renovated views on the origin of neuropsychiatric disorders and introduced innovative concepts with transformative impact.
The FENS EJN Award Lecture entitled “Cortical interneurons in health and disease” will take place on Tuesday, 25 June 2024 at 13:00.
The FENS EJN Young Investigator Prize is sponsored by Wiley (publisher of the European Journal of Neuroscience). It is awarded to early career researchers in recognition of their outstanding scientific contributions to any area of neuroscience. The award is presented at the FENS Forum, where the awardees give a lecture.
The 2024 winners are Dr Sara Bizzotto of the Paris Brain Institute, France (Brain mosaicism: from lineage tracing to pathology) and Prof. Tobias Hauser of the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Germany (Using computational
neuroscience to understand mental disorders).
The FENS-EJN Young Investigator Prize Lectures will take place on Tuesday, 25 June at 13:30.
The Peter Seeburg Integrative Neuroscience Prize, endowed by the Schaller-Nikolich Foundation, honors original and groundbreaking achievements in neuroscience.
The prize, named after the German neuroscientist Peter H. Seeburg, a pioneer in molecular neurobiology, was founded to recognize outstanding advances in the understanding of executive brain functions and cognitive processes. While the ultimate goal is to understand how the brain works as a whole, Peter Seeburg appreciated that complex questions often must be broken down in order to become accessible to experimental scrutiny.
In this spirit, the nominee will be expected to have successfully embedded molecular and cellular events in a circuit and systems context to make significant advances in explaining cognitive and behavioral processes such as emotion, learning, memory, attention, and decision-making.
The Peter Seeburg Award Ceremony will take place on Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 17:15-17:30.
ALBA Network
The ALBA-FKNE Diversity Prize, presented jointly by the ALBA Network and the FENS-Kavli Scholars seeks to recognise a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to promoting equality and diversity in brain sciences. This includes a wide range of actions including, but not limited to, advocacy, mentorship, or the creation of diversity-promoting initiatives. The advancement of equality and diversity — e.g. by gender, race, sexual orientation, class, or culture — is crucial in research and relies on the influence of leaders and role models who catalyse the full integration of scientists at all academic levels.
Annually awarded at the FENS Forum and the FENS Regional Meeting, the prize in 2024 will honour the efforts of Europe-based researchers at all career stages, including students, postdocs and principal investigators.
The 2024 winner will be announced during the Award Ceremony on Saturday, 29 June 2024 at 12:45-13:00.
More information: www.alba.network/awards
Launched in 2021, the ALBA-Elsevier Award Lecture highlights exceptional scientific contributions across all neuroscience domains, with a special emphasis on individuals from underrepresented groups. This annual recognition celebrates research achievements of outstanding quality by an active scientist working at the frontiers of brain research, at any career stage PhD or MD onwards, and in research institutions situated in a country that is underrepresented among neuroscience publications and conferences. In addition to highlighting the awarded individual’s scientific excellence, this prize will support regional diversity and increase visibility of both the scientist and their institution.
The 2023 awardee is Agustin Ibañez (BrainLat, Chile) and the 2024 awardee is Limei Zhang (UNAM, Mexico). Each awardee will each deliver a 20-minute Special Lecture.
The ALBA-Elsevier Award Lecture will take place on Saturday, 29 June at 11:30-12:15.
The ALBA-Roche Research Prize for Excellence in Neuroscience recognises outstanding work in brain research by mid-career scientists from underrepresented backgrounds, whose work focuses on the nervous system and may improve our understanding of the causal mechanisms of brain diseases.
Awarded through a partnership between the ALBA Network and Roche, this annual prize is being launched in 2024 and will recognise mid-career scientists who have made remarkable contributions in the field of neuroscience and foresee their potential for translation, and belong to an underrepresented group. This prize aims to celebrate the achievements of researchers who have reached a pivotal stage in their career, demonstrating independence, originality and the potential to shape the future of their respective areas of study.
Dr Mootaz Salman (University of Oxford, UK) will be presented with the Inaugural ALBA-Roche Research Prize for Excellence in Neuroscience on Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 17:15-17:30.
FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence Awards
Initiated by the FENS-Kavli Scholars (FKNE), the FKNE Mentoring Prize honours a scientist with demonstrated leadership in fostering the careers of neuroscientists.
The recipient of the FKNE Mentoring Prize 2024 will be announced at the FENS Forum, on Friday, 28 June 2024 at 17:15-17:30.
The FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence awards the FKNE PhD Thesis Prize to an early career researcher for his/her outstanding PhD thesis in any domain of neuroscience.
The winner of the prize will be announced at the FENS Forum, on Friday, 28 June 2024 at 17:15-17:30.
Partner awards
ERA-NET NEURON awards the Excellent Paper in Neuroscience Award (EPNA), targeted at early-career scientists who have published first author research articles in international peer reviewed journals. Every two years, the EPNA awardee is invited to the FENS Forum for a special lecture.
The ERA-NET Neuron Award Lecture given by Dr Ana Dorrego-Rivas will take place on Saturday, 29 June at 11:30-12:15.
The Brain Prize is awarded by the Lundbeck Foundation to one or more scientists who have distinguished themselves by an outstanding contribution to neuroscience and who are still active in research. The winners are invited to give a lecture at the FENS Forum.
The 2023 Brain Prize winners are Michael Greenberg (USA), Christine Holt (UK) and Erin Schuman (DE) . The Brain Prize Lecture will be given by Michael Greenberg on the topic “How nature and nurture conspire in the regulation of postnatal brain development and plasticity” on Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 13:30-14:30.