The Hill Prizes

Qualified applicants include all Texas-based researchers who meet the following eligibility requirements:

Medicine, Public Health, Engineering, Biological Sciences and Physical Sciences Eligibility Requirements

• Open to all Texas-based applicants (including TAMEST members) 15 years or more after their first independent faculty appointment. Applicants must have had 15 years of experience (by calendar year) the year the application is submitted (must be 2009 or earlier).
• Applicants must have spent, at a minimum, the past two years (at the time of submission) performing research in Texas at an institution within the state and stay active there for at least one year after receiving the prize award funding.
• Applications may be submitted by individuals and teams from all research universities, medical centers, nonprofit research institutes and other scientific organizations in Texas.
  • Approval by the applicant’s institution is required at the time of the application.
  • There may be more than one application from an institution. Multi-institution applications are welcome.
  • For team submissions, the Principal Investigator or team lead must be an active leader and participant of the group and meet all eligibility requirements.

Technology Prize Eligibility Requirements

• Open to all Texas-based researchers (including TAMEST members) 15 years or more after their first full-time private- or government-sector affiliated position. Applicants must have had 15 years of experience (by calendar year) the year the application is submitted (must be 2009 or earlier).
• Applicants must have spent the past two years (at the time of submission) performing research in Texas at a company, government agency or institute within the state and stay active there for at least one year after receiving the prize award funding.
• Applications may be submitted by individuals and teams from all companies, private research institutes, government agencies and other scientific and research organizations in the private sector and government in Texas (including university or government spinout companies).
  • Approval by the applicant’s organization is required at the time of the application.
  • There may be more than one application from an organization. Multi-organization applications are welcome.
  • For team submissions, the Principal Investigator or team lead must be an active leader and participant of the group and meet all eligibility requirements.

Applicants must choose only one category (medicine, public health, engineering, biological sciences, physical sciences or technology) for their submission and may not submit their proposal in more than one category. Categories are listed below.

The Hill Prizes Committee reserves the right to move an applicant into a different category if they believe the submission is more suitable for that category. Applicants may only submit one proposal per category.

2025 Hill Prizes Categories

Medicine:

• Autoimmune Disorders
• Cardiopulmonary Diseases
• Clinical Pharmacology
• Gastrointestinal Diseases
• Maternal and Children’s Health
• Musculoskeletal Disorders
• Neuropsychiatric Disorders
• Oncology
• Pathology
• Psychiatry

Public Health:

• Behavioral Health
• Biostatistics
• Clinical Cancer Prevention
• Community Health
• Disease Control and Prevention
• Epidemiology
• Environmental and Occupational Health
• Health Disparities
• Health Policy and Management
• Health Promotion and Education
• Mental Health
• Nutrition and Food Safety
• Psychology

Engineering:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Biomedical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering
• Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Electronics, Communications, Information Systems, and Control Systems
• Materials Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering
• Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Biological Sciences:

• Animal Biology
• Plant Biology
• Microbiology
• Ecology and Environmental Science
• Entomology
• Infectious Diseases and Immunology

Physical Sciences:

• Astronomy
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Earth Sciences
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Solar and Space Physics

Technology:
There is no limitation to field or discipline, but the Principal Investigator of the application must come from the private sector or government.

A committee of TAMEST members (Texas-based members of the National Academies) will evaluate applicants and recommend finalists in consultation with a panel of National Academies members from outside of Texas. A committee of Texas Nobel and Breakthrough Laureates reviews and endorses the finalists. The TAMEST Board of Directors then gives final approval of the prize recipients.

Submissions will be judged on the following criteria:

• Uniqueness of idea behind the research;
• Potential for commercial application and/or real-world impact;
• Strengths of research group leader and/or team;
• Ability and availability of key personnel and infrastructure to execute the work and achieve success with the prize funding to be awarded.

Key Dates:
April 18, 2024: Hill Prizes Information Session
May 1, 2024: Applications Open
May 31, 2024: Applications Close at 11:59 p.m. Central Time
January 2025: Recipients announced
February 4, 2025: Recipients recognized at TAMEST Annual Meeting

Award Period:
Proposals should be for at least one year in duration with an expected start date of March 1, 2025.

Budget:
$500,000 USD per prize. Funds may not be used for overhead or indirect charges.

Application materials are crucial to evaluating and selecting from the submissions. All applications must be submitted through the online portal and acknowledge approval by applicant’s institution or organization to accept the prize funds.

The following components are required to be submitted as one .pdf document:

1. Cover page with applicant and proposal information, including:

• Category of prize;
• Title of proposal;
• A summary statement from the applicant (50 words or less) succinctly explaining:
  • A summary of the research and why it should be chosen for the Hill Prizes;
  • the potential impact of the research.
• An abstract summary (no more than 250 words) of the proposal.
• Applicant information, including:
  • Principal Investigator’s name;
  • Principal Investigator’s title and organization
  • Principal Investigator’s address, email and telephone contact information;
  • Principal Investigator’s year of first faculty or industry-affiliated appointment (must be 2009 or earlier);
  • Names of Co-PIs and team members.

2. A statement from the applicant (up to 5 pages) defining:

• The problem the applicant is trying to solve with their research, and the key gap the work will fill;
• limitations of current approaches and what makes the applicant’s approach novel;
• the potential impact of the work, supported by relevant metrics if possible;
• any potential commercial and translational applications of the work;
• the path to impact for their proposal;
• how the recipient would use Hill Prizes funding to accelerate their work and make a significant impact on society. (Detailed budgets are not required, but applicants should explain how the funding would be used, e.g., for equipment, personnel or other expenses, with approximate amounts for each major category.)

3. Biographical summary for the Principal Investigator (not to exceed three pages), including:

• a summary of education, employment, honors, recognitions and awards;
• a summary of the applicant’s research interests and activities, including (where applicable) information on the most relevant grant support (titles, sources and duration) or projects led, and the role of the applicant in each grant;
• citations for up to ten of the applicant’s most important research publications;
• a synopsis of the applicant’s discoveries and research contributions; and
• statistics on papers, books, patents (if applicable) and reports.

Applicants may submit NIH Biosketches for the Principal Investigator in lieu of the biographical summary. Additional team members bios may also be submitted, but the team member bios are not to exceed one page per team member.

Applicants may also submit citations and key references as an additional element of their proposal, but they must be included last and submitted as part of the single .pdf proposal. The review committee will not be evaluating proposals based on citations and extensive literature review, but a few key references are welcome.

All materials (including cover page, statement, biographies and additional references and citations) must be submitted in one Adobe PDF document.

Proposals should be formatted in Times New Roman, 11-point font with margins of at least 0.5”.

Detailed budgets are not required, but applicants should explain how the funding would be used, e.g., for equipment, personnel or other expenses, with approximate amounts for each major category.

Letters of recommendation or support are not permitted and will not be accepted.

All application materials must be submitted at the time of application. All applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central Time on May 31, 2024.

Each prize recipient’s institution or organization will receive $500,000 in direct funding from Lyda Hill Philanthropies. Recipients retain full intellectual property rights. Expenditures from the prize must follow the spending policies of the recipient’s institution or organization. Funds may not be used for overhead or indirect charges.

Prize recipients must be from a Texas institution or organization and stay active there for at least one year after receiving the prize funding. Prize funding shall remain with the institution or organization that receives the award. There is no specific requirement for how rapidly the funds must be expended, but the expectation is that the funds will be expended in a timely manner to advance the objectives of the work as quickly as reasonably possible.

Recipients must be able to attend the prize ceremony the evening of February 4, 2025, at the opening reception of the TAMEST 2025 Annual Conference in Irving, Texas. Travel and lodging will be provided for Principal Investigators to attend the ceremony.

Recipients must provide a statement on the impact of the funding on their work annually until one year after the prize funds have been expended, with a brief explanation on how the funding was used. Recipients agree that information included in the statement may be used publicly by TAMEST and Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The expectation is that the promotion of successful prize work may be helpful to the prize recipients and to other Texas-based researchers and innovators.

For additional information, please contact TAMEST: tamest@austin.utexas.edu or (512) 471-3823.