Beginning in May 2022, The Dan David Prize is relaunching as an award that supports history and the study of the past, the Board of the Prize announced Wednesday.
The relaunched prize, now the largest history prize in the world, will award up to nine $300,000 rewards annually to early- and mid-career scholars and practitioners around the world to recognize outstanding achievements in the study of humanity's past and to support the winners’ future endeavors.
Founded in 2001 by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan David to recognize achievements in the sciences and humanities, the prize will now champion a range of emerging and more established scholars of the past, active within and beyond the academic world. Winners can include researchers from a wide range of fields, including history, archaeology, anthropology and art history, and also practitioners such as archivists, curators, public historians and documentary filmmakers. The prize is endowed by the Dan David Foundation and is headquartered at Tel Aviv University.
Ariel David, son of the prize's founder and board member of the foundation, explained the relaunch.
“We are proud of the work we have done over the past two decades, recognizing major breakthroughs in the sciences and the humanities,” he said. “But we live in a world in which investment in the humanities, particularly in the historical disciplines, is declining, even though we know how important studying the past is for understanding the present and building the future. For these reasons, we have decided to focus our resources on this field and help catalyze the next generation of scholars.”
Previous laureates include Dr. Anthony Fauci, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, novelist Margaret Atwood, former US Vice President Al Gore, economist Esther Duflo and filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen.