The initiative aims to raise awareness of excellent researchers and their research. In addition, Elite Research highlight the researchers as role models to attract more young students for a career in research, in order to fulfil the ambition to make Denmark one of the leading and most competitive knowledge societies in the world.
The Elite Research Prize is awarded to outstanding researchers with international experience and a PhD-age of maximum 15 years. The Ministry for Higher Education and Science annually distributes five prizes. Each prize is 1.2 million. 200,000 is a personal award and 1,000,000 goes to research.
The Elite Research Travel Grant is DKK 200,000 and helps very talented PhD students to perform longer-term studies in some of the best research environments in the world. The Ministry of Higher Education and Science annually distributes up to 20 Elite Research travel grants.
Recipients of Elite Research prizes are presented and honoured at the annual Elite Research Conference.