Maria de Sousa Award 2026: Last call
Applications are open until May 31. In total, the award will distribute up to €150,000 to a maximum of five winners.
Published May 18, 2026
Final weeks to submit applications for the Maria de Sousa Award 6th edition - 2026, promoted by the Portuguese Medical Association and the Bial Foundation to honour the immunologist and great researcher Maria de Sousa. The deadline for applications is May 31.
The Maria de Sousa Award aims to award and support young Portuguese researchers aged 35 or under with scientific projects in Health Sciences, including a mandatory internship in an international centre of excellence.
In total, the award will distribute up to €150,000 to a maximum of five winners. Applications must be submitted individually. Applications by groups of researchers are not accepted.
The Jury is chaired by Rui Costa, president and CEO of the Allen Institute (USA), and includes researchers who were very close to Maria de Sousa: Miguel Castelo-Branco, director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT) at the University of Coimbra; Maria Manuel Mota, CEO of the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (GIMM); Joana Palha, full professor at the School of Medicine of the University of Minho; and João Relvas, researcher and group leader at the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences (i3S) of the University of Porto.
Created in 2021 to honour the legacy of Maria de Sousa, the award has already recognised 25 young researchers, selected from 300 applications received over its five editions.
The regulation, application submission and more information about this edition are available here.