TWAS has opened calls for nominations for three awards that are aimed at outstanding women researchers and scientists from Africa and Science and Technology Lagging Countries.

The prizes are:

* TWAS-Abdool Karim Prize in Biological Sciences for women scientists in low-income African countries pursuing research in Biological Sciences;

* TWAS-Fayzah M. Al-Kharafi Prize for women scientists from STLCs, for achievements in Social Sciences;

* TWAS-Samira Omar Innovation for Sustainability Prize for women scientists (in 2019) in LDCs.

The calls are open, with a deadline for online nominations set for 31 July 2019.

More about the Prizes

The TWAS-Abdool Karim Prize is named for epidemiologist Quarraisha Abdool Karim, a TWAS Fellow and associate scientific director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). Her discoveries have shaped life-saving clinical guidelines for patients infected with a combination of HIV and tuberculosis in countries across the world.

The TWAS-Al-Kharafi Prize covers various fields of science. It is named after chemist and TWAS Fellow Fayzah M.A. Al-Kharafi, the former president of Kuwait University (1993-2002) and an expert in corrosion chemistry. She has been widely honoured for her work and influence, and in 2011 she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Prize for Women in Science for her work on corrosion.

The annual TWAS-Samira Omar Innovation for Sustainability Prize provided by TWAS Fellow Samira Omar Asem of Kuwait, an influential environmental researcher and a former TWAS treasurer. Omar is director general and principal research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), with over 40 years of experience in research and development.