DESCRIPTION
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.
Instructions
Before starting on your nomination, we recommend that you take time to read through the call conditions, available at this link.
- Nominations in this call are through an online form comprising a number of steps, in the course of which nominators are asked to provide detailed information and attach a series of documents of varying types. If you are thinking of nominating, we recommend that you set aside sufficient time to prepare the material and complete the process within the submission period specified in the call conditions. At the end of the process, in the “Summary” section, you will be invited to submit your form, after which you will receive an email setting out the basic details of your nomination.
- At each step, the online form will specify a series of fields for you to complete. Check that you have correctly filled in all the required fields before going on to the next page.
- Nominations may be completed in various sessions, with users saving and retrieving the partially completed form until the process has finalized.
- The form will be saved automatically as you advance through the steps, but you can also save it manually using the “Save and Exit” button at the top right of the screen. Each time you save a partially completed form, the system will email you a link and a password that you can use until the submission is complete. Also, each time you return to the form, you will be sent an email with a reactivation password (OTP code).
- On accessing the saved form, it will open at the last page completed. To move to the next screen, use the buttons at the bottom of the page, not the arrows on your browser.
- Once the nomination is complete, it will not be possible to access it or make changes.
- On finalization, the person completing the form and all nominators will receive a confirmation email with a reference number, which they should quote in all subsequent correspondence with the BBVA Foundation.
- Both nominations and the accompanying documentation must be submitted in English only.
- We recommend that only one person complete the form, and that they do not keep it open in multiple sessions simultaneously.
- The system performs an automatic security scan of all attached documents, which may take some time depending on the size of the files.
- To avoid incidents when uploading, the file names of attached documents should not be excessively long or contain accents, commas or other symbols. We suggest you keep them short.
- The system is compatible with versions of Chrome above 40, Firefox above 35, Safari above 8 and Internet Explorer above 11.
- You are asked not to fill in the form using capital letters, unless their use is required by rules of grammar or spelling.
- Self-nomination is not permitted.
- The same organization, institution or person may nominate more than one candidate without limitation of number, but no candidate may be nominated for more than one award category.
If you have any queries, please contact us at: awards-info@fbbva.es.
There follows a description of all the information and documentation needed to complete your nomination.
Getting started | REGISTRATION
To begin a submission under this call, you must first enter a valid email address. You will be sent a message to this account with a form access password, which you will need to complete the form in various sessions, saving partially each time.
This registration email, which is linked to the person filling in the form, can be changed at any point in the process and does not have to coincide with the email address of the head of the institution or of the candidates themselves.
Before moving on to select the award category you are entering for, you must accept the call conditions and Personal Data Processing terms.
Step 1 | CATEGORY
Select the award category you wish the candidate to compete in according to their merits.
- Basic Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics)
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
- Biology and Biomedicine
- Biology
- Biomedicine
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Climate Change and Environmental Sciences
- Climate Change
- Environmental Science
- Earth Science
- Conservation Biology
- Economics, Finance and Management
- Humanities
- Philosophy
- Philology
- Literature
- Linguistics
- History
- Others
- Social Sciences
- Law
- Political Science
- Sociology
- Anthropology
- Demography
- Human Geography
- Psychology
- Education Sciences
- Others
- Music and Opera
- Music
- Opera
Step 2 | NOMINATOR
Each nomination may have a maximum of thirty nominators.
To add or remove a nominator, use the designated buttons provided in the form.
All nominators must provide the following information and documentation:
A. Institution: Choose those categories that best fit your institution and/or describe your situation as a nominator.
B. Nominator particulars: The email address provided will be the one used by the BBVA Foundation in subsequent correspondence. We also recommend that you include the international call prefix in the telephone field.
C. Letter of nomination: The nomination coordinator should provide a signed letter of nomination. Remaining nominators are also advised to provide a signed letter. The file should be in PDF format and no larger than 4MB.
Step 3 | CANDIDATE
You should first specify whether the candidate is an “individual” (natural person) or “organization” (legal person). The subsequent fields will vary according to your choice.
To add or remove a candidate, use the designated buttons provided in the form.
A. Nominated for: Provide a summary – max. 1000 characters with spaces – of the candidate or candidates’ achievements, including the main reasons for their nomination. This should be a self-standing narrative and not simply an excerpt from or reference to the candidate’s CV or the document of salient contributions.
B. Candidate particulars: Including the institutional affiliation and contact information of each candidate.
Please note that in the event that your nomination is selected by the committee, the BBVA Foundation will contact the laureate(s) by phone as soon as the committee meeting ends – probably not before 17:00 GMT. For this reason, we recommend that you provide a direct or cell phone number.
C. Specialty: Succinctly specify the candidate’s specialist area within the award category corresponding to your nomination.
D. Candidate’s salient contributions: This document (maximum of 3 pages, single spaced) should take the form of a continuous narrative describing the nature and importance of the contributions for which the candidate is being nominated, and the reasons why the nominator believes they merit the award. The file should be in PDF format and no larger than 4MB.
This description need only be provided if the letter of nomination does not give an account of the candidate’s salient contributions or if it is necessary to expand on the information contained therein.
When more than one candidate is being nominated, the description should include each one’s specific input to the above global contribution, and whether it was arrived at through collaborative working (as a team) or independently (working in parallel). It should in no event exceed the 3 single-spaced pages specified, regardless of whether the entry comprises one or more persons and/or institutions.
E. Candidate’s CV: Provide for each person nominated. This document is not required in the case of organizations.
Step 4 | CONFIRM DETAILS
Before finishing your nomination, you can check that the data entered in the various sections are correct by directly accessing the steps of the form through the corresponding tabs.
You can then submit your nomination by pressing the “Confirm nomination” button on the bottom right of the form.
The next screen that comes up will show the date and time of your submission (Spanish standard time) and a reference number that you should quote in all subsequent correspondence with the BBVA Foundation. You can also download a nomination summary in PDF format. This same information will be sent to all nominators and to the registration email address appearing in the form.
Once the nomination period has closed, you can check the status of your entry through our website www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es using the nomination reference number and the registration email.
It will not be possible to access or make subsequent changes to completed and submitted forms
