Royal Society Africa Prize

Royal Society Africa Prize winner 2023

Professor Kelly Chibale (credit: H3D)

The Royal Society Africa Prize 2023 is awarded to Professor Kelly Chibale for exceptional leadership and groundbreaking work in drug discovery for African endemic diseases.

The award

The Royal Society Africa Prize is to recognise research scientists based in Africa who are making an innovative contribution to the sciences. The medal is of bronze, awarded annually and is accompanied by a gift of £2,000. The prize was previously the Royal Society Pfizer Award which was last awarded in 2016.

Eligibility

The Royal Society Africa Prize is open to African citizens. There are no restrictions on career stage and nominations will remain valid and shall be considered by the award selection committee throughout three nomination cycles.

The terms and conditions of the Royal Society Africa Prize (PDF) should be read before submitting a nomination.

Nominations 

Nominations for this award will open in November 2023.

Past winners

Professor Novel Njweipi Chegou was awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize 2022 for his work in the fields of pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis, and his innovative project proposal.

Professor George Warimwe was awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize 2021 for his work on zoonoses vaccine development, capacity building in Africa, and his innovative research proposal.

Dr Steven Runo was awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize 2020 for elucidating pathways for long distance RNA trafficking between parasitic plants and their hosts and identifying and developing transgenic protocol for characterizing and validating candidate host and parasite genes.

Dr Henry Mwandumba was awarded the Royal Society Africa Prize 2019 for his novel work in description of the TB phagosome in HIV infected alveolar macrophages and his leadership in the College of Medicine in Malawi.