BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards

The BBVA Foundation expresses the social responsibility engagement of the BBVA Group, along with its firm commitment to the advance­ment of the societies where it does business. The central planks of the Group’s culture and strategy are the promotion of knowledge, digi­tal technology and innovation, and scrupulous respect for the ethical principles characterizing the plural society of the 21st century, which it views as key drivers of ongoing value creation for people and a source of new opportunities and choices for individuals and groups.

The BBVA Foundation promotes scientific re­search of excellence through grants for team research projects, the dissemination of out­comes to society through channels including workshops, lectures, publications and exhibi­tions, advanced training initiatives, research awards in partnership with scientific societies, and the annual grant scheme “Leonardo”, fund­ing the personal projects of researchers and cultural creators. The Foundation also lends active support in other cultural areas, with a focus on classical music, opera, the plastic arts and literary creation.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, whose nineteenth edition is now open, recognize and reward world-class research and artistic creation, prizing contributions of singu­lar impact for their originality and significance. The name of the scheme is intended to de­note not only research work that substantially enlarges the scope of our current knowledge – pushing forward the frontiers of the known world – but also the meeting and overlap of different disciplinary areas and the emergence of new fields.

The Frontiers of Knowledge Awards honor fundamental disciplinary or interdisciplinary advances across a broad expanse of the knowl­edge map of the 21st century. The areas ad­dressed by this family of awards are:

Basic Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics)

Biology and Biomedicine

Information and Communication Technologies

Climate Change and Environmental Sciences

Economics, Finance and Management

Humanities

Social Sciences

Music and Opera

The Frontiers Awards are informed by the fol­lowing principles. Firstly, the need to uphold the importance of basic knowledge. However valuable the diverse forms of applied research prized by science policy in these past decades, basic knowledge remains the core mechanism of scientific change and, indirectly, of humani­ty’s progress and wellbeing, besides being an essential part of culture.

Secondly, an acknowledgement of the inter­disciplinary nature of knowledge in the closing decades of the last century and the present day. Hence an organization of award categories that reflects the interaction and overlap of dis­ciplines (physics, chemistry and mathematics, biology and medicine, economics, finance and management), while retaining the option to dis­tinguish advances in one discipline alone.

Thirdly, the awards recognize the fact that many decisive contributions to our current stock of knowledge derive from the collabora­tive efforts of large groups of researchers. This is why accolades may be shared by any number of any size teams, with the sole condition that the achievement being recognized is the result of collaborative or parallel working.

Fourthly, attention goes to two knowledge areas concerned with the natural world, the founda­tion of life in all its expressions: Climate Change and the Environment.

Fifthly, the disciplines underpinning today’s digital society are present in the awards through the category of Information and Communication Technologies.

In sixth place, the list is joined by two catego­ries distinguishing contributions of major sig­nificance in the realms of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Finally, the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards reserve a dedicated category for Music and Opera.

Nomination for the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards is open and indirect. The right to submit candidates extends to a wide spectrum of organizations and departments, including university schools, institutes and de­partments, research centers, hospitals and ar­tistic and cultural institutions. Third-party nomi­nations are also accepted from researchers and cultural creators that have made outstanding contributions in their fields.

The evaluation and decision process in respect of award nominations will take place over the two steps specified in point 7 of these call conditions.

The BBVA Foundation is assisted at both these stages by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

CSIC is an autonomous Public Research Organization with a multisectoral, multidis­ciplinary scope. Endowed with its own legal personality and assets, it operates throughout Spain while maintaining a sizable international presence. The partnership between CSIC and the BBVA Foundation endorses the objectivity, independence and standards of excellence in­forming the selection process from end to end. It also rests no less on a shared conviction of the fundamental role played by advanced sci­entific research and artistic creation as forces for the ongoing advancement of society.