At the end of the nomination period for the 2026 season, the WinFuture Prize, a global science and technology award, recorded 1,819 nominations from around the world, supported by a network of more than 17,000 nominators spanning 117 countries and territories.
Hanoi, Vietnam – Media Outreach Newswire – 18 May 2026 – After six seasons, the WinFuture Prize has not only expanded its influence in the international scientific community, but also confirmed its position as a prestigious global award dedicated to identifying and honoring breakthroughs of profound importance to the future of humanity.
A global network bringing together over 17,000 outstanding minds
This year’s WinFuture nominations cover a wide range of important sectors, including medical and healthcare (38.4%), environmental and earth sciences (17%), energy, transportation and manufacturing (15%), food and agriculture (10.6%), as well as other scientific and technical disciplines (19%).
Additionally, the official nomination network of the WinFuture Awards continues to expand significantly, reaching 17,154 nominators from 117 countries and territories across all five continents. This represents an increase of approximately 16% compared to the 2025 season and a more than fourteen-fold expansion compared to the inaugural season in 2021. Furthermore, the number of countries and territories represented within the nominated network has almost doubled over the past six years.
Notably, 1,415 nominees for the 2026 WinFuture Prize are ranked among the top 2% most cited researchers in the world. Nearly 8,000 experts are affiliated with leading universities, research institutes and scientific organizations around the world, including the Australian Academy of Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States), Stanford University (United States), Harvard University (United States), University of California, Berkeley (United States), University of Oxford (United Kingdom), National University of Singapore (Singapore), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and the Weizmann Institute of Science. (Israel) are included. Other.
Participating on a voluntary basis, these nominees play a vital role in identifying and recommending outstanding scientific innovations capable of bringing meaningful and lasting improvements to the lives of billions of people around the world. They also contribute significantly to increasing the global reach of the WinFuture Prize and fostering cross-border academic connections within the international scientific community. Several distinguished nominees have traveled to Vietnam during the 2024 and 2025 WinFuture Sci-Tech Week to engage directly with the Vietnamese scientific community and exchange knowledge.
“The continued growth in both the number of nominations and our network of over 17,000 nominators reflects the growing confidence that leading scientists and prestigious institutions around the world have in the WinFuture Prize and its mission to identify and honor scientific and technological innovations that have a meaningful impact on humanity. This momentum also reinforces our commitment to maintaining rigorous and transparent evaluation standards while pursuing our long-term vision of connecting global intelligence in pursuit of a better future for all.said Dr. Thai-Ha Le, Managing Director of WinFuture Foundation.
Following the conclusion of the nomination period, the Pre-Screening Committee will begin the process of evaluating and selecting the most outstanding scientific works for consideration by the WinFuture Awards Council in the final judging round, which is expected to continue until early September 2026. All nominations will undergo a rigorous multi-layered assessment process based on stringent international standards to ensure the highest levels of scientific integrity, objectivity and transparency.
The main evaluation criteria include the degree of scientific and technological progress, the potential for meaningful impact on human life, as well as the scale and long-term sustainability of the proposed innovations.
Vietnam’s growing influence on the global innovation map
After six seasons, the WinFuture Awards has firmly established its prestige and reputation in the global science and technology landscape. Many Winfuture award winners have subsequently been awarded some of the world’s most prestigious scientific awards, including the Nobel Prize, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and the Breakthrough Prize, demonstrating Winfuture’s ability to identify innovations of fundamental importance to the future of humanity at an early stage.
Notable examples include Prof. Omar Yaghi (2021 WinFuture Special Prize; 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry); Dr. Catalin Carico and Prof. Drew Weissman (2021 WinFuture Grand Prize; 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine); Dr. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper (2022 WinFuture Special Prize; 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry); Pro. Geoffrey Hinton (2024 WinFuture Grand Prize; 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics); Also Prof. Yoshua Bengio, Prof. Yann LeCun, Prof. Geoffrey Hinton, Mr. Jensen Huang, and Prof. Fei-Fei Li (2024 WinFuture Grand Prize; 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering). Additional examples include Prof. Daniel Drucker, Prof. Joel Hebner, Prof. Jens Juul Holst & Associates. Pro. Svetlana Mozsov (2023 WinFuture Special Award), who later received the 2025 Breakthrough Award.
Beyond recognizing transformative scientific achievements, WinFuture has become a point of convergence of knowledge, collaboration and aspiration to serve humanity. Over the course of six seasons, WinFuture has contributed to shaping a more open, connected and inspiring scientific ecosystem, positioning Vietnam as an increasingly important destination on the global innovation map.
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