LEO Foundation Award: Region Americas

The LEO Foundation Award was born out of the aim of advancing the understanding and treatment of skin diseases and strengthening the pipeline of excellent dermatology researchers. It recognizes promising young talents and hopefully provides a boost to their future careers.

Funding Information

• A LEO Foundation Award is worth USD 100,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• The LEO Foundation Awards constitute global recognition of individual scientists who represent excellence and advance their understanding of skin and skin diseases. Their regional awards are given annually to outstanding young scientists whose work represent extraordinary contributions to dermatology research.
• An applicant must:
  • Have their primary workplace within the relevant region at the time of being selected as awardee.
  • Be between 30 and 40 years of age at the time of being selected as awardee. Natural and reasonable career breaks such as paternity/maternity leave, military service or the like may be deducted if the periods of leave are clearly stated with start and end dates and total number of weeks in the Applicant Details section of the application. Specifically for parental leave, applicants who have taken maternity or paternity leave can deduct the actual number of weeks of leave multiplied by 2.0. For other types of leave, the actual number of weeks of leave can be deducted.
  • Be able to demonstrate scientific merit in the form of at least 5 peer-reviewed first author, co-first author, or last author publications within skin-related research.
  • Be an active scientist within skin-related research.
  • Agree to become a ‘LEO Foundation Alumni’ with accompanying obligations, if selected as awardee.

Ineligibility Criteria

• An applicant cannot:
  • Have commercial or cosmetic/aesthetic research as their primary focus
  • Have personal or financial ties to LEO Pharma, including involvement in, e.g., sponsored studies or clinical trials at PI level
  • Be an earlier recipient of a LEO Foundation Award
  • Be an earlier recipient of another prize or award (personal or for research) exceeding a value of USD 50,000. Regular research grants are exempt from this condition.

Evaluation Criteria

• Once the call deadline has expired, the LEO Foundation screens your application for formal requirements. If approved, it is sent to an independent expert committee – the Global Review Panel for evaluation. The Global Review Panel consists of recognized scientists appointed by the International Societies for Investigative Dermatology (ISID).
• The LEO Foundation will ensure an independent and unbiased evaluation process in which all applications will be evaluated based on the same criteria and towards the same scientific level. It will normally take approximately three months from application deadline to award decision.
• The evaluation will focus on four main areas: Previous work and publication record, Vision of future work, Additional scientific merit (e.g., reviewing experience, undergraduate and graduate student supervision, societal appointments, and organizer of scientific meetings etc.) and Independence (incl. ability to obtain independent funding).

For more information, visit LEO Foundation.