The Foundation, named after the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, awards prizes and scholarships every year to foreign scientists and academics who have distinguished themselves for excellent research and teaching, in view of scientific collaborations with German institutes and research groups.

Professors Ferrara and Sagnotti will collect the prizes from the von Humboldt Foundation in Bamberg on March 28-31, 2019, when the annual Symposium takes place.

Andrea Ferrara conducts theoretical and numerical research on the formation of the first galaxies and black holes in the Primordial Universe. He is Joint Professor at the Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the University of Tokyo. He has received several international awards, including the prestigious Blaauw Prize, the Tinsley Prize and the Severo Ochoa Fellow, as well as an ERC Advanced Grant.

Augusto Sagnotti conducts research on the String Field Theory, with particular attention to the problem of Supersymmetry breaking and its role in Cosmology. He has received numerous awards, including a Miller Fellowship from the University of Berkeley, the SIGRAV Prize form the Società Italiana di Relatività Generale (the Italian Society of General Relativity) and the Margherita Hack Prize.

The Von Humboldt Foundation awards (65,000 euros and 60,000 euros) will be invested in study and research projects in Germany.