External Deadline: December 2025 Internal Deadline: October 7, 2025
Instructions for electronic submission: To apply for the Blavatnik National Awards, please submit the materials requested below to this link no later than October 7, 2025, at 11:59 PM.
Budget: One Blavatnik National Awards Laureate in each disciplinary category will receive $250,000 in unrestricted funds, and additional nominees will be recognized as Finalists.
Number of Applications: 3 applications from WCM (not shared with Ithaca)
Program Description:
The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists recognize the United States' most promising faculty-rank researchers in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemical Sciences.
Objectives: The objective of the Blavatnik Family Foundation is to recognize and celebrate exceptional young scientists — to make them examples of what the next generation of young scientists should strive to achieve. The Foundation is providing g critical support to seed innovative work in science and technology that will address society’s most pressing global problems.
Evaluation Criteria:
- Quality: The extent to which the work is reliable, valid, credible, and scientifically rigorous.
- Impact: The extent to which the work addresses an important problem and is influential in the nominee’s field.
- Novelty: The extent to which the work challenges existing paradigms, employs new methodologies or concepts, and/or pursues an original question.
- Promise: Nominee’s potential for an independent career and further significant contributions to science or science-related fields.
See the Foundation website for details.
Eligibility
- Have been born in or after 1984.
- Hold a doctoral degree (PhD, DPhil, MD, DDS, DVM, etc.).
- Currently hold a tenured or tenure-track academic faculty position (or equivalent)
- Currently conduct research as a Principal Investigator and have made significant contributions to the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, or Chemical Sciences.
- There are no residency or citizenship requirements to be nominated for the Blavatnik National Awards.
The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists welcomes nominations from underrepresented groups in science and engineering.
Application Requirements
WCM is limited to submitting 3 nominees. Due to this limitation, an internal selection process will be coordinated. Chairpersons/Division Heads & Institute Directors may submit no more than two nominations from their department/division or institute.
Chairs/Division Heads & Institute Directors submitting more than one nomination must send a statement commenting on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two nominees to researchdean@med.cornell.edu.
Margins should be at least one inch and a font size no less than 11 points.
- A 30-lines scientific abstract explaining the quantification of the applicant and fit of the project for this funding mechanism.
- Letter of nomination explaining why you believe the candidate should be selected (200-word maximum). Please address the following: a strong record of significant scientific contributions, early career success, the promise of sustained or accelerated progress in the future, and research according to the Quality, Impact, Novelty, and Promise evaluation criteria described above. Please provide the rationale for nomination in a letter format with the Chair/Institute Director/Division Chief letterhead.
- Biosketch (4-page maximum, PDF).
- Research Summary (1,000-word maximum, PDF). A summary of the candidate’s most significant scientific contributions and research accomplishments. For further guidance about the research summary please consult the award website.
- One paragraph statement describing the nominee's outreach activities and/or professional service. Where possible, the nominee should focus on activities and service related to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the scientific community.
- List of up to 4 publications and/or patents
Submit the items listed above here no later than October 7, 2025, at 11:59 PM in the order listed as one PDF document using the naming convention: PI last name-first initial_BlavatnikNational2026.pdf (see example below).
Example: Smith-J_BlavatnikNational2026.pdf
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Anesthesiology
- Basic Science
- Biochemistry/Biophysics
- Cancer
- Cardiovascular
- Clinical Science
- Community Health
- COVID-19/SARS-CoV2
- Dermatology
- Diabetes
- Drug Development
- Endocrinology
- Genetics
- GI
- Healthcare Policy
- Hematology
- Hepatology
- HIV
- Immunology
- Medical Education Research
- Medicine
- Microbiology
- Molecular Biology/Cell Biology
- Nephrology
- Neuroscience
- Nursing/PA/Allied Professions
- Obstetrics/Gynecology
- Ophthalmology
- Orthopedic
- Pathology
- Pediatrics
- Pharmacology
- Physiology
- Precision Medicine
- Psychiatry
- Psychology/Behavioral Science
- Pulmonology
- Radiology
- Regeneration
- Surgery
- Translational Science
- Urology
- Faculty
- Junior Faculty