Oslo, 10 June 2026 — The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters today announced the 2026 Kavli Prize laureates, honouring ten scientists from nine different nationalities and three continents for research that has broadened understanding of the big, the small, and the complex. Each laureate group will share a $1 million USD prize, with the award ceremony scheduled for September 2026 in Oslo.
The Kavli Prize is a partnership among The Kavli Foundation, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. It is awarded biennially in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.
Astrophysics: The Milky Way as a Galactic Fossil Record
The 2026 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics is awarded to Vasily Belokurov, Amina Helmi, and Rodrigo Ibata for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion.
For decades, the prevailing model of galaxy formation suggested that large galaxies like the Milky Way grew by absorbing smaller galaxies over cosmic time. However, confirming this theory required finding the stellar remnants of those ancient mergers — a task likened to finding fossils in a geological deposit.
The three laureates achieved this by analysing the kinematic and chemical signatures of stars in the Milky Way's halo. Ibata discovered a stream of stars in the nearby Andromeda galaxy that hinted at the accretion process. Belokurov and colleagues identified the Gaia-Enceladus structure — the remnant of a dwarf galaxy that collided with the young Milky Way roughly 10 billion years ago. Helmi pioneered techniques using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission to trace the orbital histories of individual stars, revealing that significant portions of the Milky Way's halo originated from this single ancient merger.
Their combined work transformed the Milky Way from a seemingly static spiral into a dynamic archaeological site, where the debris of galactic collisions can be read in the motions and compositions of individual stars.
Nanoscience: The Birth of Twistronics
The 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience is awarded to Eva Y. Andrei, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, and Allan H. MacDonald for foundational work that established the field of Twistronics.
The story began with MacDonald's theoretical prediction in 2011 that stacking two layers of graphene — a single-atom-thick sheet of carbon — at a slight angle relative to each other could produce radically different electronic properties. He calculated that at a so-called "magic angle" of approximately 1.1 degrees, the bilayer system would exhibit flat electronic bands, potentially leading to strong electron correlations.
Andrei's experimental group at Rutgers University provided the first direct observation of the electronic band structure in twisted bilayer graphene, confirming key aspects of the theoretical predictions. Then in 2018, Jarillo-Herrero's group at MIT stunned the physics community by demonstrating that magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene could exhibit both superconductivity and Mott insulator behaviour — properties associated with some of the most exotic phenomena in condensed matter physics.
The field of twistronics has since exploded, with researchers applying the twisting concept to other 2D materials and discovering new correlated states of matter. The work has implications for quantum computing, novel sensors, and the fundamental understanding of how electrons behave in engineered quantum materials.
Neuroscience: Local Protein Synthesis in Neurons
The 2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience is awarded to Christine Holt, Kelsey Martin, Erin Schuman, and Oswald Steward for the discovery of local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity.
The traditional view of neuronal protein production held that all proteins were manufactured in the cell body (soma) and then transported to distant parts of the neuron. This view posed a logistical problem: neurons can extend over a metre in length, and their synapses — the junctions where signals are transmitted — can be far from the cell body. How could synapses respond rapidly to local signals if they depended on proteins manufactured far away?
The four laureates overturned this paradigm by demonstrating that neurons possess the molecular machinery to synthesise proteins locally at synapses and in dendrites. Steward's early work in the 1980s showed that polyribosomes — the cellular structures responsible for protein assembly — are positioned beneath synapses. Schuman and Martin independently demonstrated that local protein synthesis occurs in dendrites and is necessary for synaptic plasticity, the cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory. Holt showed that local protein synthesis in growing axons is essential for accurate navigation during brain development.
This discovery has reshaped neuroscience's understanding of how brains develop, learn, and adapt, with implications for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders and designing treatments for conditions involving synaptic dysfunction.
A Shared Investment in the Future
"Honoring these excellent scientists is not only a recognition of achievements, it is an investment in our shared future, affirming the curiosity, rigor, and courage that drive human progress," said Annelin Eriksen, President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
The Kavli Prize was established by Fred Kavli, a Norwegian-American physicist and philanthropist, who founded the Kavli Foundation in 2000. Each prize consists of a gold medal, a scroll, and a share of $1 million per field. The 2026 ceremony will take place in Oslo during the Kavli Prize Week in September.
Sources
- The Kavli Foundation, "The Kavli Prize 2026," 10 June 2026,
- EurekAlert, "The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announces the 2026 Kavli Prize laureates," 10 June 2026,
- University of Cambridge, "Two Cambridge researchers awarded the Kavli Prize," June 2026,
- Forbes, "Five Americans are among the ten scientists awarded Kavli Prizes for 2026," 10 June 2026,
- National Academy of Sciences, "NAS members win 2026 Kavli Prizes," June 2026,
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Institutional Research Desk · Foresight Institute of Research and Translation
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