Balzan Prize

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Balzan Prize

The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual cash prizes to people or organizations for outstanding achievements in the humanities, natural sciences, culture, and for efforts toward peace and the brotherhood of humankind. The foundation’s assets were created by Italian Eugenio Balzan. After his death, his daughter Angela Balzan left instructions for the foundation, which has two headquarters: the prize is administered from Milan and the fund is based in Zurich.

The first award, in 1961, was 1 million Swiss francs to the Nobel Foundation. After 1962 there was a 16-year pause before prizes resumed with a 500,000-franc prize to Mother Teresa. Since 1978 four Balzan Prizes have been awarded each year. Award ceremonies alternate between Bern, Switzerland, and the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. A single committee of twenty European scholars decides all awards. Each year the foundation selects the fields for the next year and the prize amounts, which are announced in May and the winners announced the following September.

In 2001 the prize money rose to 1 million CHF per prize, with the condition that half of the funds be used for projects involving young researchers. By 2017, the amount for each prize was 750,000 CHF (about €760,000; $750,000; £660,000). The prizes recognize innovative work in both humanities (literature, moral sciences and the arts) and sciences (medicine, physics, mathematics and the natural sciences), including interdisciplinary research. The prize is highly regarded in some fields, such as sociology. Every 3 to 7 years the foundation also awards the Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood among Peoples; the last one was in 2014, awarded to Vivre en Famille.