The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities is delighted to publish a new call for the Bavarian Pioneer Award - High-Tech Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister for groundbreaking technological innovations. Thanks to the Ulrich L. Rohde Foundation, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities awards Bavarian Pioneer Award - High-Tech Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister in 2025 for the second time. The award is endowed with €300,000, which is at the winner’s free disposal.

The prize will be granted to renowned international scientists for groundbreaking innovations of technological excellence and future potential. The focus is on a successful transfer into commercial products with a high social impact.

The focus of this years’ call is on the following areas of communications technology:

• Secure Quantum Communication
• Autonomous Systems Technology
• Satellite Communication

By awarding the “Bavarian Pioneer Award – High-Tech Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister”, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences underlines the importance of science in a Bavarian and an international context and sets the agenda for topics of scientific and social relevance.

Criteria for selecting the laureate are:

• Quality of the scientific work according to strictly scientific criteria
• Social relevance, connectivity and future orientation of the results; the focus lies especially on a successful
• transfer into commercial products with a high social impact

In exceptional cases, the endowment may be awarded to two scientists (€150,000 per award winner).

A selection committee chaired by the President of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences will decide on the granting of the Bavarian Pioneer Award - High-Tech Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister. The laureate is identified in a multi-step process. In the first step, the submitted proposals are reviewed by the selection committee. Afterwards, the committee obtains independent evaluations of the proposed candidates from nationally and internationally renowned scientists.

The highlight of the ceremony will be a lecture held by the laureate.

This call addresses international university and non-university research institutions. We are looking for renowend researchers whose scientific findings demonstrate high social relevance and the associated successful transfer into commercial products.Self-nominations are not accepted. The nomination proposals in German or English should be a maximum of eight printed pages (approx. 14,400 characters including spaces) in length and can be submitted by scientists from Germany or from abroad, containing:

• a presentation of current research activity and research interests (3–4 pages),
• a curriculum vitae of the proposed scientist or of each member of the research group (max. 2 pages each),
• a list of central publications (1–2 pages),
• a half-page summary of the proposal in German and English (1 page).

Nominations can be submitted electronically until October 31st, 2025.

To the
President of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Prof. Dr. Markus Schwaiger
pioneeraward@badw.de

Inquiries at:
Telephone +49 (0)89/23031-116
Email: pioneeraward@badw.de

Download: Nomination (PDF)