TWAS-CAS Young Scientists Award for Frontier Science

Former CAS and TWAS President Bai Chunli played a central role in creating the award, currently funded for five years.

The recipients receive USD10,000 sponsored by Lenovo, a global leader in consumer, commercial, and enterprise technology that is the largest PC company in the world.

The subject rotates among various fields of science. The 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 awards recognized achievements respectively in the physical sciences; astronomy and cosmology; earth sciences; and mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

NOMINATIONS:

TWAS is inviting nominations for the 2024 Award from all its members as well as science academies, national research councils, universities, and scientific institutions in developing and developed countries.

Self nominations (i.e. applications) and nominations from jury members WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.

ELIGIBILITY:

Eligible candidates are young scientists (not older than 45 years of age), national of a developing country, who have been living and working in a developing country for a minimum of two years immediately prior to their nomination.

In 2024 the award will recognize achievements in life sciences.

Self nominations and nominations from jury members will not be considered. Fellows of TWAS are not eligible.

The same nominee cannot be nominated for more than one 'Fellows of TWAS Awards' in a given year. The secretariat retains the right to bring to the attention of the relevant nominators that the nomination may be suitable for another award, and the final decision whether or not to shift the nomination will be taken by the nominators themselves.

SELECTION:

Selection of the winner is made on scientific merit. A pre-screening of the nominees will be done at TWAS. The nomination dossiers of the qualified candidates will then be submitted to jury members for their evaluation. Based on this evaluation the winner will be selected.

HOW TO NOMINATE A SCIENTIST:

The nominations can only be submitted electronically through the online platform by clicking on the “NEW NOMINATION” button at the bottom of this page.

To resume working on saved nominations, click on the "RESUME" button at the bottom of this page.

The deadline for receiving nominations is 10 May 2024, however, we strongly recommend that you do not wait until the deadline but submit the nomination as early as you can to enable us to process it as quickly as possible.

Before starting compiling the nomination, PLEASE PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE MAXIMUM CHARACTERS ALLOWED.

A nomination is considered complete only if includes all of the following information/material:

• Nominator contact details;
• Nominee contact details (self nominations are not accepted) and general information on the nominee, including the country where he/she has been working and living in the past 2 years;
• Authorization from the nominee (i.e. the candidate) to process his/her personal data for the purposes of his/her nomination, in conformity to Art. 13 of the Italian Legislative Decree 196/2003. This authorization can only be submitted through the online platform. The privacy authorization form is available for download in the section ‘nominee’s personal data’. The form must be filled in and signed by the candidate and then uploaded onto the online platform;
• Suggested citation (15-20 words highlighting the nominee's scientific achievements in earth sciences);
• Supporting statement regarding the nominee’s contribution in life sciences. Supporting statements should explain in detail the work performed by the candidate and its significance in the relevant scientific context. Clear reference should be made to the scientific impact of the nominee's work. Vague supporting statements will not be considered and will negatively affect the evaluation;
• Clear and detailed account of any time spent abroad by the nominee in the past two years;
• PhD: information on subject area, year and awarding institution;
• Brief information on membership in academies and societies;
• Brief information on awards and honours received;
• List of 10 most significant publications listed in an internationally acceptable format;
• The nominee's brief CV and her/his complete list of publications are also to be uploaded, separately, onto the online platform.

PLEASE CHECK IF ENTERED DATA ARE VALID

1) While filling in the form, pay attention to the requirements for each field (e.g. maximum number of characters, file type, date format, etc.)

2) Run a 'check' using the button of the form menu to verify that mandatory fields have been filled in and the data you entered are accepted. This also saves your form.
Every time you run a check, you are taken to the last section of the form named "Submit". Use the form menu to navigate to the previous sections.

3) After you run a check, fields with NOT ACCEPTED OR MISSING DATA will be highlighted in RED.
Please note that once you have duly modified the content of one or more fields, the red highlight will not disappear until you run again a check.

For quick tips, please click on: http://onlineforms.twas.org/documents/Applicants_tutorial.pdf

Previous winners of the TWAS-CAS Young Scientists Award for Frontier Science​:

2024: Life Sciences: Fu Qiaomei of China for her innovations in key ancient genomic technologies and contributions in human evolution across Eurasia, illuminating how discovered ancestry has shaped the genetic makeup and adaptive traits of modern humans.

2023: Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Neena Gupta of India, for outstanding discoveries on fundamental questions in affine algebraic geometry, including the longstanding Zariski Cancellation Problem.

2022: Earth Sciences: Sun Yele of China, for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of air pollution sources and formation mechanisms, and how air pollution interacts with the boundary layer.

2021: Astronomy and Cosmology: Laura Pérez of Chile, for her significant contributions to reveal the signatures of planet formation using innovative high-resolution imaging to study protoplanetary disks. 

2020: Physical Sciences (including physics and chemistry): Parameswaran Ajith of India, for his pioneering contributions to the development of phenomenological models of gravitational-wave signals from coalescing binary black holes.