Laureates of 2025 VYZOV Prize Announced

On December 15th, one of Moscow’s most technology-driven venues, the Cyberdom, hosted a press conference where the Laureates of the 2025 VYZOV Prize for Future Technologies were announced. 
 

- The VYZOV Prize in the ‘Future’ category is awarded to Vera Vil’, Head of the Laboratory of Chemistry of Industrially Useful Products at the N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), for developing methods of chemical bond construction using electric current and organic peroxides.

- The ‘Engineering Solution’ award goes to Mikhail Skupov, Deputy Director General of the A.A. Bochvar High-Technology Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, and his co-laureate Alexey Glushenkov, Chief Expert with the A.A. Bochvar High-Technology Research Institute of Inorganic Materials, for developing technology of industrial production of nitride nuclear fuel.

- The ‘Breakthrough’ category is awarded to Ilia Yampolsky, Senior Researcher with the Laboratory of Metabolic Pathways Chemistry, Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, RAS, for deciphering the molecular mechanisms of bioluminescence and for creating glowing plants.

- The ‘Scientist of the Year’ title is awarded to Stepan Kalmykov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Chair of Radiochemistry, Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, for basic and applied research in the field of radiochemistry and radiochemical technologies.

- The VYZOV Prize’s international category, ‘Discovery,’ goes to Valery Fokin, Professor at the University of Southern California (USA), for inventing the reaction that launched click chemistry and transformed molecular science as well as the chemistry of living systems. 

Chairman of the VYZOV Prize Scientific Committee Artem Oganov, Distinguished Professor with Skoltech, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Member of Academia Europaea, explained the achievements of each Laureate and said he was confident their accomplishments would not only be limited to receiving the award: “This year’s Laureates are truly great scientists whose works are already well-known to their colleagues, and will now be well-known to the entire nation. These people are now at the height of their scientific careers, and I think this is by far not the last time we get to learn about their scientific achievements. Research done by our Laureates paves new paths in science: laying the foundation for developing new medicines, new plants with properties they didn’t originally possess, a new generation of nuclear fuel, new substances and new methods of material synthesis. Their research effectively influences all spheres of human life.” 

Dmitry Zauers, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprombank and a Member of the Vyzov Foundation Council, highlighted the importance of supporting new inventions and technologies: “We are used to regarding technology as a product that someone creates and we get to use. The VYZOV Prize changes this paradigm by putting the scientists behind those innovations in the spotlight. Their inventions are like elementary particles that give birth to new industries. Gazprombank as a co-founder of the Vyzov Foundation works as a catalyst that brings those ‘atoms’ together to create new, complex and viable ‘molecules,’ namely high-tech projects. We have deliberately integrated this activity into our bank’s strategy to enable new technology giants and new innovative industries to emerge in our country some ten or twenty years from now.” 

Konstantin Bogomolov, Principal Director of the VYZOV Prize awards ceremony and Artistic Director with the Malaya Bronnaya Theatre and the Melnikov Stage Theatre, told the audience about the awards ceremony, which would be traditionally held at Moscow’s Manezh Central Exhibition Hall on December 19th: “We regard this ceremony as a grand artistic performance in itself, which we would like to promote as an artistic event. Besides being a time of happiness for the laureates and the entire scientific community, it is also a time of contemplation about science, the present and the future: philosophical, lyrical and sometimes metaphorical. I hope we will be able to make this year’s awards ceremony substantive, so that the viewers could join us in contemplation and come out not only impressed by the caliber of personalities coming onstage, but also impressed in an emotional and intellectual way. That is how I see my main objective.”