United Kingdom and Ireland - National programmes

The L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland For Women in Science Rising Talent Programme offers awards from a partnership between L'Oréal-UNESCO UK & Ireland, the UK National Commission for UNESCO and the Irish National Commission for UNESCO, with the support of the Royal Society, to promote, enhance and encourage the contribution of women pursuing their research careers in the UK or Ireland. In 2020, L'Oréal-UNESCO UK and Ireland announced the dedication of one of our five awards to outstanding scientific work promoting sustainable development. The aim is to contribute to the strengthening of research and advancing of the achievement of the scientific evidence base within the interdisciplinary Sustainability Science. The new Sustainable Development prize sits alongside four other established awards, dedicated to research in the fields of Physical Science; Engineering; Mathematics & Computing and Life Science. The Rising Talent Awards are offered under the umbrella of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science Programme, which has promoted women in scientific research on a global scale since 1998. Five Rising Talent Awards will be granted in 2021 to outstanding women scientists in the early stages of their career to enable and/or facilitate promising scientific research. The Rising Talents are tenable at any UK or Irish university or research institute to support a 12-month period of postdoctoral research in any area of the life science, physical sciences, mathematics and computing, engineering or sustainable development. The value of each rising talent award is £15,000 (equivalent €; for candidates in Ireland). The awards are designed to provide flexible support. The prize money can be spent in innovative ways to enable women scientists to pursue and continue their research careers; such as buying equipment, paying for childcare or funding travel costs to an overseas conference.