Upcoming award ceremony

The sixth edition of the Ben Feringa Impact Awards will be presented on 9 June 2026.

With this award, the University of Groningen honours the unique achievements of its researchers and students in the field of knowledge utilisation. Nobel laureate Ben Feringa will present the prize to the winning researchers and students during a festive ceremony at Forum Groningen.

The finalists - Category: researchers

• “Grounding AI - Exploring the role of algorithms in science”
  by Matilde Ficozzi & Dario Rodighiero
  Campus Fryslân

• “Revolutionizing pediatric and prenatal cancer imaging: 90% dose reduction with total-body PET/CT”
  by Sasha Ivashchenko
  Faculty Medical Sciences/UMCG
• “World’s first full-length single-molecule protein sequencer”
  by Giovanni Maglia
  Faculty of Science and Engineering

The finalists - Category: students

• “The wainscotting at museum Janning”
  by Anna Sofie Kuiper, Caroline Roelfzema, Feyona Voerman en Klarissa Groen
  Faculteit Letteren 

• “AI-PHASIA: Next-word prediction for pauses and paraphasias in agrammatic anomic aphasic speech using unidirectional large language models”
  by Thijs van der Laan
  Faculty of Science and Engineering
• “Gender equity and circular construction”
  by Maruna Manthe
  Campus Fryslân

Programme

14.30 Walk in 
15.00 Start award ceremony  
16.15 Closing reception
 
The award ceremony will be hosted by Friso Visser, creative director of Brainfuel. He will dive into the fascinating question of how to measure impact and whether it can truly be captured at all. In addition to celebrating this year’s winners, the programme features two inspiring keynotes from previous Ben Feringa Impact Award recipients: Michelle Bruijn (Researcher Award 2022) and Igor Marchenko (Student Award 2025). They will share the latest developments in their research and offer a personal reflection on how winning the award has influenced their journey and opened new doors in their careers.

Selection committee

The entries were assessed by a selection committee consisting of UG scientists, UG students and staff from external cooperation partners. This year, the jury consists of: 

• Francesco Picchioni, professor Chemische Technologie (FSE, UG)
• Bettina van Hoven, professor Aletta Jacobs Chair ‘Place, social Change and Collaborative Research for Wellbeing and Justice’ (UCG, UG)
• Lana Fahham, student assessor (Board of the University, UG)
• Nienke Homan, Chair Koninklijke Vereniging van de Nederlandse Chemische Industrie & CEO Impact Hydrogen
• Joost van Egmond, Science journalist at Trouw