Eyes on the antimicrobial resistance prize

Professor Altmann's top tips

• The prize is open to researchers of every stripe, not just classical biomedical researchers. Health economists, for example, are welcome to bid.
• Applicants should be on the cusp of becoming leaders in their field but not yet established as such.
• This prize won’t go to someone who simply promotes their standard medical research, but to someone who can also show game-changing patient and public engagement.
• The prize money is for the winner to turbo-charge their research so if they treat their application like a standard project grant, they won’t get far.

How do you choose an emerging leader?

We think very hard about what we mean by an emerging leader. It’s a bit like Britain’s Got Talent or the X Factor—you can spot people who are doing things that are really special. They do have to be emerging, rather than emerged, and on a steep upward trajectory. They have to be doing something that when they tell you about it, it kind of gives you a thrill and you think, “Wow, that could make a real difference.” An almost no-strings-attached cash prize for their research could give such people a bit of a springboard for the next stage of their career.

How can people prove they have that X Factor?

For the Emerging Leaders Prize, we’re not looking for standard medical research. We are looking for the person who walks into the room and shows that they are really pushing their field forward on every front: through their communication with patients, through asking difficult research questions and through their outreach on social media. I feel like I can spot the people who are living and breathing their research question as soon as they walk into the room.