The Medical Research Foundation’s 2021 Emerging Leaders Prize will celebrate outstanding scientists whose research has made a significant impact in the fight against COVID-19.
£200,000 of flexible funding will be awarded to the winners, helping them to advance their COVID-19 research and their research careers.
Each year our Emerging Leaders Prize celebrates the achievements of researchers working on a different research theme. The prize funding provides a springboard for the winners’ careers and ensures they can continue to tackle key health challenges – both now and long into the future.
This year’s Emerging Leaders Prize applicants may have conducted COVID-19 research related to (but not limited to) the following scientific areas: virology, viral phylogenetics, epidemiology, immunology, viral transmission, neuroscience, clinical symptoms and management, cardiology, stroke, vaccine development, therapeutic development, long-term effects of COVID-19 including Paediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19 (PIMS-TS) and ‘Long-COVID’, and child, adolescent or adult mental health.
To be eligible for a prize, the applicant’s contributions to the pandemic must be research-based and not service-based, for instance setting up diagnostic laboratories or vaccine infrastructure.
The funding is flexible, meaning that the winners decide how best to use it. This could mean spending time in a lab overseas, buying a cutting-edge piece of technology for their research, or investing in their personal career development.
The research supported in this competition is possible thanks to the legacy from the estate of Professor Victor Louis Ménage and Mrs Johanna Alicia Ménage. In previous years, our Emerging Leaders Prize has recognised researchers working in the fields of pain, antimicrobial resistance, adolescent mental health and lupus research.