Three rising stars in Israeli science have been named the 2025 laureates of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel, one of the country’s most prestigious science prizes.
The awards, which include a $100,000 grant for each recipient, honor exceptional early-career researchers in life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences and engineering.
The 2025 laureates include doctors in life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences/engineering. Dr. Yonatan Stelzer, a life sciences honoree from the Weizmann Institute of Science, has been recognized for advancing the understanding of mammalian embryonic development and epigenetics, with implications for regenerative and therapeutic medicine.
Dr. Benjamin Palmer, a chemical sciences honoree from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has been recognized for his pioneering research on how organisms form crystals and interact with light, laying the groundwork for sustainable optical materials.Dr. Chaim Garfinkel, a physical sciences and engineering honoree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was awarded for developing new models that improve predictions of climate change on timescales from months to decades.
Now in their eighth year in Israel, the Blavatnik Awards are the largest unrestricted scientific prizes for Israeli researchers under the age of 42. Since 2017, Israeli laureates have received a total of $2.7 million in prize money. Globally, the awards have honored 540 scientists from 120 institutions, awarding nearly $20 million in total.
“The brilliant, young minds we honor with these awards are examples of the enormous ingenuity and creativity that has made Israel a powerhouse of scientific progress,” said Len Blavatnik, founder of Access Industries and head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Milestone victories in academia
This year’s awards also mark a milestone, with the first-ever Israel laureate originally hailing from the UK, underscoring the international reach of the competition. “This international dimension highlights the global nature of scientific pursuit,” said Prof. Nicholas Dirks, president of The New York Academy of Sciences.
Prof. David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, emphasized the importance of supporting science in a time of national crisis. “Maintaining Israel’s position at the forefront of global science…relies upon supporting and encouraging its scientists,” he said.
The 2025 cycle drew 36 nominations from seven Israeli universities, with juries composed of leading Israeli scientists and Nobel laureates selecting the winners.
Many previous laureates have gone on to found startups and pursue high-risk, high-reward scientific research. To date, companies founded by Blavatnik Award recipients have a collective valuation exceeding $12 billion.