BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards, Premios Fundación BBVA Fronteras del Conocimiento, in Spanish, are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards respond to the knowledge map of the present age. As well as the fundamental knowledge that is at their core, they address developments in information and communication technologies, and interactions between biology and medicine, ecology and conservation biology, climate change, economics, development cooperation and, finally, contemporary musical creation and performance. Specific categories are reserved for developing knowledge fields of critical relevance, as in the case of the two environmental awards. Accolades in the environment area and development cooperation, two central challenges of the 21st century, may go to either research or practical actions and programs founded on the best available knowledge.

The awards were established in 2008, with the first set of winners receiving their prizes in 2009. The BBVA Foundation – belonging to financial group BBVA – is partnered in the scheme by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the country’s premier public research organization.

In their eight editions, as many as four winners of BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards have gone on to win the Nobel Prize. They are: Robert J. Lefkowitz, 2009 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Biomedicine and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012; Shinya Yamanaka, 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Biomedicine and Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2012; Lars Peter Hansen, 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Economics, Finance and Management, and 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics; Jean Tirole, 2008 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Economics, Finance and Management and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2014, and Angus Deaton, 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Economics, Finance and Management and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2015.

There are 8 award categories: Basic science, Biomedicine, Ecology and Conservation Biology, Information and Communication Technologies, Economy, Finance and Management, Contemporary Music, Climate Change, and Development cooperation. Specific categories are reserved for developing knowledge fields of critical relevance, as in the case of the two environmental awards. Accolades in the environment area and development cooperation, two central challenges of the 21st century, may go to either research or practical actions and programs founded on the best available knowledge.

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